Former CIA director Porter J. Goss
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.
There are several problems, mark bourrie, with your outline. It is based, completely, on false axioms.
The first problem is that your analogies are false. This has been pointed out to you numerous times.
There is no comparison between a POW and an Islamic fascist terrorist. A POW is not, himself, a self-directed agent of criminal violence. A terrorist is. A terrorist has CHOSEN to harm other people.
Kindly do not merge the two. That would be to criminalize the military members of all nations. Is that your agenda?
Second, the tactics used by the CIA are not torture. There is no soft-flesh harm, no permanent harm – heh – even a doctor standing by. Your inattention to the difference is unwarranted; it may help feed your sentimentalism, but facts are facts.
Third, the govt of a nation is obliged, by both moral and legal obligations, to protect its citizens from harm. Do you disagree?
CASE EXAMPLE: If an individual, a terrorist, i.e., not a member of a nation’s military unit but an individual with a self-directed agenda of extreme violence against a nation’s civilians, is captured, then, the govt has the duty to find out this self-directed agenda. You disagree?
How do you propose to obtain information about this agenda, which this individual, and a small few of his buddies, has all planned out? Remember, they have CHOSEN, themselves, to carry out brutal and vicious attacks against people. What’s your response to protecting these people?
Fourth: You may assert that these harsh interrogation practices don’t work. The CIA says they do. Who can we believe? You or the CIA?
Fifth: Again – a nation’s govt has the moral and legal duty to protect its citizens. In the case of self-directed massive criminal (i.e., not carried out by a military) attacks against these citizens – then, a govt has the right to apprehend and question these criminals.
If force needs to be used to get the answers, then, the results have to be weighed. Remember, this was a CHOICE, made by that individual, to attack thousands of civilians. And you, the govt, have NO CHOICE. You are legally and morally obliged to protect a nation’s citizens. OK?
Valiant effort, ET, but facts and logical arguments, as well-organized as yours are, simply bounce off bourrie’s armour of impenetrable obstinance. He’ll resort to anecdotal tales irrelevant to the argument (“my uncle fought the japanese who were tougher than the taliban”, which is certainly debatable) and obfuscate and evade everything else. He still hasn’t answered the most basic question: knowing there is an attack planned that could kill thousands, would you simulate drowning on a terrorist with knowledge to prevent the attack (leaving him unharmed), or let innocents die?
And, as noted by many above, a government that would put the life of 1 terrorist above the welfare of any of its citizens does not deserve its authority.
Designer destruction part one. The old nkvd, kgb always had as its first goal was to destroy or neutralize the intelligence community of the enemy. This has been accomplihed;Dems well done
Thanks, ET, for your fine analysis.
(And I know how to spell this guy’s name: Smark. I did it all by myself too!)
I keep bringing up the analogous situation of our public education systems because . . . teachers—charged (under the Education Act) to keep order and actually teach the curriculum—who dare to discipline the minor and major thugs in their charge, get hauled before administration to justify THEIR behaviour. “You did what? Raised your voice [to a repeat—and repeat and repeat . . .—offender who’s thrown a desk and told the teacher to “F*** off”]! That’s cruel and unusual punishment. Don’t let it happen again.” The thugs? Pandered to, appeased, and let off the hook to offend, usually more egregiously, again and again and . . .
What a travesty—and it seems to be happening at every level. Accountable citizens, who bear the burden of responsibility for preserving safety, good order, and the rule of law, who must, on occasion, use stern to harsh measures, in order to protect their fellow citizens from sociopaths, psychopaths, and plain, old fashioned evil doers, are targeted and accused. Meanwhile, by the multitude of useful idiots out there, the miscreants, criminals, and terrorists are considered poor, innocent victims of unjust actions. (Public school systems are hothouses and active spawning grounds for moronic fifth columnists.)
The intellectual and moral inversion of such sabotage is altogether a scandal. And the appalling indignity of it all, to the responsible professionals involved, is very destructive. The result? The best, heartsick and beaten down, just for doing their jobs responsibly, get out. The boot lickers and opportunists are willing to stay and turn their backs. (Fine professionals, with no choice, also stay, but they keep their heads under the ramparts.)
IMO, Obama is a very dangerous man: altogether an enemy of peace, order, and good government. Like ET and many others here, I’ve never been impressed by this altogether narcissistic snake oil salesman. The above scenario explains to me why so many dupes have fallen for this despicable man’s self-serving and ultimately destructive cart and pony show.
Kyrie eleison.
ET, why are you wasting your eloquent writing on these lefties? As you have stated many, many times lefties run on emotion, no amount of facts will convince them otherwise. Whatever you present means nothing as their minds are fully closed.
Lookout, lucky this murderer of Jane Creba has been in jail for the last 3 years. He is only 21 now and already has 2 bastards, one 7 and the other 4. The next thug generation is well on its way.
Figured that dropped ‘r’ would be enough to offend a self-inflated moron like you Bourrie, and that you’d be compelled to mention the misspelling. Well Borie, thanks for always being predictable…& usually wrong!
I hear you, Dave.
But I hope you’re not blaming Mr. Cold Blood Murderer Stud Dad for his bad behaviour . . . Of course, it’s not his fault.
(sarc off)
Sometimes I’m tempted to stop eating and turn my face to the wall—what our ancestors used to do when death was imminent and there was nothing they could do about it.
At the moment, until the civilizations of the West are prepared to call a spade a spade and name the evils—yes, evils—we’re facing, we’re vulnerable to the literal murder and mayhem being planned for us by the hordes of barbarians, both outside the gates, and home grown and inside them.
(As far as the useful idiots go, these barbarians may as well be wearing Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.)
Fascist blather. Not a fact or coherent argument in the lot.
mark bourrie – no, that is not how to handle questions, criticism and dissent from your opinions – i.e., retreating into name-calling.
Now, you’ll have to explain how, and I’ll refer only to my argument is ‘fascist’ and furthermore, is ‘blather’. And, how there are no facts or ‘coherent argument’ in my argument.
You can’t get away with simply asserting your opinions, and then, when criticism arises, retreating into name-calling and unfounded claims of ‘no facts’ and ‘no logic’. After all, that means that you are unable to substantiate your opinions with facts and logic.
So, try again. This time, deal with the specific issues I raised.
“Let’s get at the truth too about the word “torture,” which to different people, means different things. Some think “torture” means standing on the 98th floor of a burning skyscraper and realizing you have a choice between jumping and being incinerated. Some think torture is being crushed when a building implodes around you. Some think torture is not thinking you might drown for several minutes, but looking at burning buildings on television and knowing that people you love are inside them. They remember that being crushed, incinerated, or killed in a jump from the 98th story happened to almost 3,000 blameless Americans (as well as a number of foreigners), and that 125 Pentagon employees were killed at their desks, while many survivors suffered terrible burns. They think the choice between stopping this from happening again by slapping around or scaring the hell out of a cluster of brigands, or leaving the brigands alone and letting it happen again, is a no-brainer. . . . .
The first job of a president is to safeguard his country and fellow citizens, which Bush did, to the apparent dismay of the opposition. Usually, an investigation takes place after someone has failed in his duty, to find out what went wrong so that it can be changed and improved on. But no attacks on U.S. soil in the seven-plus years between September 11, 2001, and January 20, 2009, is a record of success.”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/422ggyuo.asp
As they say, “Read the whole thing.”
And watch Liz Cheney defend her country and her father here:
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2009/04/l_cheney_us_did.php
Degrading the most benign, unimperialistic super-power this world has ever known while ignoring or morally-equalizing the hideous regimes out there is infantile but depressingly common. This whole torture debate is moot in the face of reality, because one just knows, as Liz Cheney said, that any American captured by Al Queada will be horrifically tortured and have his head cut off, regardless of how any terrorists are treated at Guantanamo. Feel smug and superior all you want,you who never had to face a camera with Islamist thugs behind you holding knives, who never lost a loved one on 9/11, who can have any book you want on your bookshelf and trash your elected leaders without fear, but I’m grateful to Bush’s “fascist” regime for keeping safe the civilization that my children and I (and you!)are enjoying, and that so many people in hideous regimes (who know what true torture is) try to escape to. Those who make it know that who are the true fascists.
I’m with you, ET.
I don’t believe that my thesis is “fascist” either: “Accountable citizens, who bear the burden of responsibility for preserving safety, good order, and the rule of law, who must, on occasion, use stern to harsh measures, in order to protect their fellow citizens from sociopaths, psychopaths, and plain, old fashioned evil doers, are targeted and accused. Meanwhile, by the multitude of useful idiots out there, the miscreants, criminals, and terrorists are considered poor, innocent victims of unjust actions.”
Name calling by our political opponents is immature and a total cop out. But what else does one expect?
ann, I altogether agree. Thanks.
And, yes, Liz Cheney was superb. The MSNBC shill, who intervie . . . I mean, interrogated her, was a disgrace. (Not waiting for the asteroid, indeed.)
Funny how Borie wants to dismiss hypothetical situations that he’s placed in as ‘silly scenarios’, when they are far more relevant to the discussion than much of the nonsense he comes up with. I would imagine that there is a part of him buried far below the surface that recognizes the relevance of such questions, which causes great discomfort to his outer fool. Markie, did you ever issue a response to Tanker’s comments? It seems it would be hard to dismiss him/her as not actually having skin in.
…the game, and a working knowledge of the efficacy of such persuasive techniques. Knew a former member of JTF2, wish he was still around to query (RIP A.R.).
I just keep asking people to deal with reality and prove the crap they’ve been spewing, and to remember the ideas of liberty and rule of law that underpin the American republic.
Seems like too much to ask here.
mark bourrie – no, don’t try the ‘I’m just a poor hapless victim’ tactic. That’s an equally fallacious strategy of dealing with a debate. You still haven’t dealt with the criticisms of your opinions.
No, you aren’t dealing with reality. That’s why we question your comments – to point out their lack of validity and their unrealistic speculation.
You, remember, incorrectly equated members of a military service with Islamic fascist terrorists. This error – and it’s a very serious error – has been pointed out to you. Instead of acknowledging your error – you talk about ‘crap that we are spewing’. Heh – We could, if we wished, define your equation of a member of a genuine military unit, with a self-defined terrorist criminal – as ‘crap that you are spewing’.
You are quite right – liberty and the rule of law are the basics of the American democracy. Now, explain how they are relevant to an examination of terrorists who have, as individuals, chosen to break the rule of law and chosen to kill as many civilians as they can; they are indifferent to their own loss of life in this process.
Isn’t a government, obliged by both morality and that same rule of law, to protect its citizens from anyone intent on breaking the rule of law and killing those citizens?
Isn’t that the reality that a government has to deal with – a set of fanatical criminals, individuals, not members of any military, who have made a self-determined choice to brutally murder hundreds, thousands, of people. You seem to ignore this reality. You seem to ignore the right of the citizens to their liberty – which means – to their freedom from being exposed to terrorist attacks such as planned by these individuals.
So- facts are facts; reality exists and it requires hard decisions; and a government must protect its citizens from criminals who are intent on breaking the rule of law and denying life and liberty to thousoands. You refuse to face these facts, this reality and this duty to protect people.
I’m not a victim.
Meanwhile, the Americans themselves say waterboarding hasn’t done any good:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/66895.html
Meanwhile, America’s enemies are feasting on the propaganda victory provided by Cheney and his fools.
I also wonder why all you brave, tough-talking people post under fake names. Easy to be tough when you’re an anonymous member of a mob.
You’d have to ask Nancy Pelosi what she heard in the 30 briefings she attended on the issue.
You’d have to ask Nancy Pelosi what she meant when she asked as chair of the Intelligence Committee: ‘Are there any other techniques that would help?’
You’d have to prove criminal intent. Apparently, Nancy Pelosi saw no criminal intent. In fact, she asked if there were other techniques that would help gain information needed to protect the citizenry of the United States.
Apparently, facts are secondary to personal opinion and unprovable allegations.
Why not be like Diane Feinstein, the current chair of the Intelligence Committee, and question the release (the original topic of this thread) as she did on CNN this morning?
After all, those legislators are the ones who have the information to make an intelligent decision as to whether it’s time to turn the page or to prosecute.
My understanding is that a prosecution cannot procede unless there’s a reasonable certainty of criminal intent.s
This will go down in history as a big miscue by Obama, who would have been better to let Feinstein’s committe do its work and come up with a report in 6-8 months.
That would have been the intelligent thing to do.
I also wonder why all you brave, tough-talking people post under fake names. Easy to be tough when you’re an anonymous member of a mob.
Would the questions asked, bourrie, be easier for you to address if they were attached to names rather than nicknames? Or would you still evade, obfuscate and decline to answer them?
Just wondering.
mhb
I don’t have to prove criminal intent. Anyone involved in torture had the intent to do it, and knew it was illegal. Americans tortured people.
Torture is not only illegal under international law, it’s also a very ineffective way of gathering accurate information. Anyone connected with torture should be exposed. Since America is a democracy, the voters can hold those responsible to account.
Again, we’re supposed to be on the side of “good”. Torturing makes us less good. It makes it easier for Islamist recruiters to argue that America is a “Great Satan”. And it doesn’t matter what the other side does. The fact that they torture people (among other reasons) makes the the bad guys. Let’s make sure the world can tell the difference.
I don’t have to prove criminal intent. Anyone involved in torture had the intent to do it, and knew it was illegal. Americans tortured people.
Torture is not only illegal under international law, it’s also a very ineffective way of gathering accurate information. Anyone connected with torture should be exposed. Since America is a democracy, the voters can hold those responsible to account.
Again, we’re supposed to be on the side of “good”. Torturing makes us less good. It makes it easier for Islamist recruiters to argue that America is a “Great Satan”. And it doesn’t matter what the other side does. The fact that they torture people (among other reasons) makes them the bad guys. Let’s make sure the world can tell the difference.
mark bourrie – you misunderstand; I said that you were using the ‘victim’ strategy with your “I’m just asking people to deal with reality”. No, you weren’t. You were giving your opinions and this ‘victim’ statement is a ‘diversion’; It’s pretending that you are a hapless person just asking for reality and truth, when in reality, you are, as many have pointed out, evading both reality and truth. We’ve criticized you; you refuse to deal with the criticisms.
I prefer to rely, not on an obviously biased report but on an impartial report. Others in the CIA say that waterboarding did work. But, you, mark bourrie, are evading the questions.
And no, don’t move into a ‘red herring’ or diversionary argumentative tactic, with your attempt to denigrate the validity of our criticism of your opinions by claiming that our use of blog names suggests that our criticism has no merit.
That’s a fake tactic to divert the issue. Our criticisms of your opinions remain. They are valid, and so far, you haven’t addressed a single criticism. Not one.
A great part of your argument was your comparison of these terrorists to men in the military. This is obviously invalid, and yet, you still haven’t dealt with acknowledging the CHOSEN INTENTION of these terrorists to brutally murder thousands of civilians.
For heaven’s sake – the criminal intent really refers to the intent of these terrorists to murder civilians. You haven’t addressed this issue.
Again, harsh interrogation isn’t torture. For genuine torture, check out what Al Qaeda does, with blowtorching, putting out of eyes, cutting off limbs, etc. You are setting up yet another false comparison.
Again, you haven’t dealt with the reality – that these individuals CHOSE to both bomb and develop more plans, to bomb, brutally murder and terrorize civilians. It’s quite incredible, but you absolutely ignore this fact, this reality.
Does a government have the moral and legal duty to prevent such individuals from carrying out their actions? Well? Why don’t you answer?
Your naive sentimentalism is misplaced; you are ignoring that ‘the good side’ means that duty, which is both a moral and legal duty, of a govt to protect its citizens. If they fail to do this, then they have failed in that moral and legal duty. Incredible – but you say NOT ONE WORD about this requirement. Why not?
“Others say”, huh?
More vague stuff and generalizations.
Mark Bourie: Legal, moral and correct only occasionally coincide. Making an act legal does not make it right or moral. Making an act illegal does not make it wrong or immoral. We Christians have an expression that says ‘the letter kills but the Spirit gives life’. Because it is impossible to foresee all eventualities our legal (letter) system often fails us. However when we are at a crossroads we often resort to what is our intent. If our intent in waterboarding is to induce suffering in the waterboarded then waterboarding is wrong. If the intent of waterboarding is, in absence of any better method, to obtain information that may well prevent the deaths of thousands of innocent people then waterboarding is the right course of action.
Mark,
They caught the guy in Manila because he screwed up the recipe for a bomb, then they tortured him and got the details of the plot. You don’t get to re-write history.
Sort of amazing how little evidence, as in none, Mark needs to call someone a liar. I guess he would rather take chances with *my* life flying for 17 hours over open ocean, many hours from any kind of help for the majority of the trip, to prove *his* moral superiority.
And, Mark, if torture doesn’t work, why did Obama redact the information in the memo he release detailing what was learned? Seems like it would be a no-brainer to just release the info and prove his point.
Mark Bourrie must have some kind of processing problem, or maybe he can’t read; I haven’t been reading “vague stuff” and “generalizations” but some very specific arguments which he doesn’t seem to want to deal with.
So typically leftard. If they don’t agree, they stick out their tongues, call people names, and pretend that opposing arguments aren’t worth their time or attention. Oh yeah, did I mention arrogance?
Mr. Bourrie obviously likes a lot of attention. ‘How about ignoring him?
Batb (if that is, indeed, your real name), I suggest you read the stuff over again.
batb – mark is obviously young and a leftist, but a leftist without any thought about WHY he is such, or WHAT this entails.
And again, he doesn’t address the criticisms of his opinions.
For example, he refuses to acknowledge his invalid arguments – i.e., his false comparisons of soldiers with criminals; his definitions (what is torture); he refuses to deal with the moral and legal requirement of a govt to protect its citizens; he refuses to deal with the FACT that these terrorists CHOSE to carry out criminal acts.
Furthermore, he does not deal with intentionality when he deals with ‘torture’. All he does is focus on The Act. He ignores causality (obviously, he hasn’t read Aristotle!).
He does not consider WHY the CIA carried out these ‘harsh interrogations’. Mark Bourrie instead, ignores this basic requirement of intentionality of the act – and only focuses on the act.
As a comparison, how about the Islamic complaint of ‘racism’ because the chocolate swirls on an ice-cream cone in England ‘look like’ the Arabic word for Allah, and therefore, the ice-cream company is ‘insulting Islam’. Intention to insult? No.
So, how about the individual who has chosen to align with Al Qaeda, and his intentions of bombing a church/mosque/shopping mall etc. Mark Bourrie totally, utterly ignores this and focuses only on ‘how evil we are’ at getting this information out of this individual..who, remember, has made an individual choice to carry out this agenda. We didn’t force him to make that choice; he chose criminality and terrorism.
When Al Qaeda kills, it does so out of the lust to destroy. When Al Qaeda tortures – and they torture to maim – they do so out of the lust to destroy.
Yet, Mark Bourrie totally, utterly ignores this basic intentionality, that lust to destroy, and equates it with the US CIA acts, which do not destroy anyone, but which PREVENT the destruction of thousands of people. Now, such an illogical equation of two different intentionalities shows how immature his thinking is.
Mark Bourrie, yes, you are young naive leftist.
You do not know that when ET states something it is fact, simply by virtue of her saying it.
ET says America does not torture.
America waterboards. The Japanese,, the Kmher Rouge, The Chinese Communists, the Nazis, all waterboarded and when they did so, it was known as torture. The US actually executed Japanese soldiers who waterboarded – because it’s torture.
But ET says it isn’t torture. So it simply can’t be.
ET says that you state torture doesn’t work, but the CIA says it does. She says who are we to believe, you or the CIA?
Yet according to this article, of which ET is surely aware, the CIA says it does not work:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66895.html –
ET makes statements but rest assured you’ll never see them backed up with links like the one above. She seems to feel that if she can be as verbose and academic-sounding as possible, that’s all it takes to make her claims credible. Not too intellectually admirable.
For ET to make such statements, it is obvious she is either uninformed or a fabulist. Though I suppose there is a chance that she is both.
In any case, these guys keep coming with the same made-up scenario, of an imminent attack which can only be thwarted by the use of these Nazi-like tactics.
However, neither they or Cheney can produce one actual event where this was the case. And of course we have aforementioned link in which the CIA states that there never was a case. These people are simply blowing smoke in a factless, unfounded attempt to justify barbarism -why? Who knows?
Perhaps what’s really eating them is the recent revelation that torture was used not in a panicked attempt to save American lives but to try and fashion false info to justify the Iraq war, as seen in this link where people were tortured to try and get them to say there was a 9-11/Iraq link:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html
What a noble, moralistic enterprise! Torturing people to create false information to swindle the rubes into supporting their elective war! Beauty!
Mark Bourrie,you naive, young leftist. Let this be an education for you. We know that all Germans weren’t by-the-book Nazis. But enough of them were willing to compromise their basic humanity to allow Hitler’s atrocities to occur. The people on this board are willing to tell any falsehood and make any illogical leap of reasoning in their support of torture – cheif among them being the intellectually disgraceful arguments in bad faith of ET. They are the enemies of Western civilization.
If I wanted to get the pin number of Mark borrie’s atm card does anyone think that torture would not work?
Torture works.
When dealing with a crazed enemy who plays by no rules we have to bend the rules just as in war we give soldiers the right to shoot to kill.
What would be desirable would be a torture warrant system so as to properly transfer the responsibility for making the decision to torture from the individual administering it to the crown – the judicial not political arm – under who that individual is serving.
We do the same when we permit police to search one’s residence or to wiretap their phone or office – things that are clearly against the law when they are not done under the authority of a court-issued warrant.
It is a greater crime if politicians sit on their hands and tie those of the enforcement agencies when citizens lives could be saved from harm.
I consider it completely legitimate to annilihilate tens of thousands of foreigners if it will save Canadian lives. We have done it in the past as we have also tortured our enemies for the same purpose. It is our right.
good heavens, bleet, the old leftist nazi comparisons. Won’t work.
Oh, and to use as reference an obviously die-hard leftist internet site as your only site – how’s that for facticity?
You have to see the original CIA memoes – and these aren’t available. That’s why Cheney wants them; but Obama’s team has blacked out the RESULTS of the interrogations!
And, you also, don’t provide any facts or logic. Just trivial ad hominem. Won’t work. Stick to the issues – which are, the choice of individuals to be terrorists; the moral and legal duty of the state to protect its citizens against terrorist attacks – and the task of obtaining information about terrorist attacks.
I don’t think that there is any doubt about an Iraqi-al Qaeda link – and by Al Qaeda I don’t mean only 9/11 activities but Al Qaeda in itself. And this is all long, long prior to 9/11. Check out Wright’s The Looming Tower for that. Al Qaeda operates in every ME Islamic nation. Got that? EVERY single Islamic nation.
So, your opinion that the harsh interrogations were to provide reasons for the Iraq War have no validity. After all, Al Qaeda didn’t exist only in Iraq! What a nonsensical statement! Read up on Al Qaeda. It was in Iraq, Iran, heavily in Sudan, in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon. Get the facts! THINK!
The war in Iraq wasn’t about Al Qaeda but about islamic fascism, of which Al Qaeda is one version. The war was about the root cause of Islamic fascism – which is tribalism in an industrial economy.
Check out the civil wars being fought in the post WWII era in the ME. Check out Algeria in the 1990s – where the fanatics rejected dialogue and killed any and all who were ‘apostates and deserved to die’. Check out Saudi Arabia, where the moderates in 1990 tried for reforms and lost. What’s needed? Democracy – and that was the reason for Iraq. You, I’m very sure, don’t understand the difference in social and economic structure between a tribal and civic format.
Again, you are both utterly ignoring the moral and ethical duty of a govt to protect its citizens against criminals – criminals who have one agenda – to brutally murder as many ‘apostates’ as they can. The choice to act immorally, i.e., to be a terrorist and plan to kills thousands – is theirs. Not ours. Our choice is to defend ourselves.
So, using waterboarding on two of the Al Qaeda terrorists – and getting results – that’s the duty of a govt. Remember, a criminal, a terrorist, is someone who has made a deliberate choice…to kill as many innocents as he can.
What’s your choice to prevent this? You consider that we, who criticize your sentimentalism and refusal to confront reality as ‘enemies of Western civilization’. Heh.
I consider Al Qaeda and Islamic fascism the true enemy of Western civilization.
ET:
Sorry but you are utterly mistaken, as are the rest of the neoconfacistrightwinghatemongeringfreemarketcapitalist posters here.
Bush lied. People died.
It was all about oil.
Fire doesn’t melt steel.
Iraqi WMD’s were a fabrication (verify this with any source you like, apart from a few thousand Kurds)
Torture doesn’t work (apart from Khaled Sheikh Mohammad & others), and references to those blacked-out CIA memos are just more proof you’re a Bush/Cheney stooge. Or a plant. Subversive. Anarchist. Vegan. Whatever.
Hey! This leftoid posting stuff is fun! I don’t need facts, I just change the topic and deny everything you say as often as possible, because in the end, that’ll make it untrue! I’d throw in some token ad hominems, too, except I like your posts too much 🙂
Seriously, though, I do admire your persistence in trying to rationally debate those who obviously aren’t interested. You must get weary of it, betimes.
mhb
ET ditto what mhb said.
mhb and gord tulk – yes, I agree. Fascinating how facts and logic simply aren’t part of the leftist repertoire.
Here’s a factual and logical outline of how those ‘harsh interrogation tactics worked’. It’s at The Corner, by Mark Thiessen.
The West Coast Plot
And another interesting analysis is that Obama is deliberately bringing up this issue to divert attention from the problems in his regime.Those Tea Parties frightened the Obama team. His Bash Bush strategy has been a mainstay since he began to campaign and he continues to use it as he denigrates America abroad and he continues to use it to whitewash himself and divert attention from his economic fiasco and his foreign policy failures.
Great! I hope the CIA is brought to their knees. With all of the torture and unlawful means of interrogation that has been going on under their sanction, it is about time that they are the ones being demoralized.
ET – John Adams had it right, concerning facts.
mhb
Anyone surf over to Marks blog? I can see why he trolls other forums, no one wants to comment on his blather. Yawn, at least you were nearly imaginative and stole part of Kate’s radio shtick.
How cute. MHB thinks that he’s proving something by recycling right-wing ad hominems. I guess that passes for humour inside his Limbaughian bubble of groupthink.
Then again, MHB also cited Christopher Hitchens’ waterboarding as ‘proof’ that it isn’t torture simply because Hitchens survived it. He quite ignores Hitchens’ comment “If waterboarding is not torture, nothing is torture.” Doh!
ET states that”I don’t think there is any doubt about an Iraqi-Al Queda link – and by Al Queda I mean not only 9-11 activities but Al Queda itself”
Not ‘only’ 9-11 activities? But Bush himself denied an Iraqi link to 9-11 activites:
http://www.seattlepi.com/attack/140133_bushiraq18.html – 31k
ET states it’s my ‘opinion’ that torture was used to come up with reasons for the Iraq war. No, it isn’t my ‘opinion’. As the link I provided shows, it is actual Fact as articulated by a senior US intelligence official.
ET’s case for defending torture rests on two premises:
1)That the tactics of the US are not torture
2)That torture is so efficacious that it is imperative.
For 1) it is simple fact that the tactic of waterboarding, to choose only one, has been regarded as torture throughout history from the Spanish Inquisition to the Nazis and on. ET’s revisionism says more about herself than it does about what consitutes torture.
For 2) we have the testimony of the most successful interrogator of Al Queda suspects, FBI special agent Ali Soufan who states:
“When they are in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them,” he says. “That means the information you’re getting is useless.” But his main objection to the techniques, Soufan says, is moral. To use violence against detainees, he says, “is [al-Qaeda’s] way, not the American way.”
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1893679,00.html
We also have the observations of CIA Middle East Field Officer Robert Baer, who states “We tortured people for almost no verifiable information.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1893509,00.html
This is in addition to my earlier posted link, which quoted the CIA inspector general as stating that no terror attack was stopped by the use of torture; and also that FBI director Robert Mueller stated that no torture techniques had disrupted attacks on America.
But what do all of these people know, really? Why, they’re only senior US intelligence officials, FBI special agents, CIA Middle East Field Officers, Inspector Generals of the CIA, the director of the FBI, and other such neophytes.
And ET is…ET! She who merely has to state something and it is so.
If an enemy of my wife and boy were trying to harm them just because they are American means one thing to me.
I expect the Intelligence services and the Armed Forces to do whatever it reasonably needs to in order to protect them.
Don’t want to be handled roughly? Don’t try and kill people.
Mark Bourrie said “Easy to be tough when you’re an anonymous member of a mob.”
No Mark. It’s easy to be tough because I am tough. And I’ve got nothing to prove to guys like you.
Time to give up this ‘discussion’ with concrete trolls.
These sorts are all mixed up and permanently set makes for an impermeable and unyielding mind set.
Over identifying with some pretend victim hood group is their high and solidifies their faulty foundation of beliefs. Gives them a sense of self importance that they crave but can’t achieve on their own merit.
MHB thinks that he’s proving something by recycling right-wing ad hominems
Actually, Brainiac, those originated from the Left.
He quite ignores Hitchens’ comment “If waterboarding is not torture, nothing is torture.”
I see. So your de facto “proof” that waterboarding is torture is hitchens’ first-hand testimony? At least hitchens was able to log his experience using two hands – unaffected by amputations – to type. And he was able to discuss his w/b trial with folks that his un-gouged eyes could see. And, for that matter, go on afterwards, permanently unimpeded, with his un-decapitated head still in-place.
Or are those simply lesser forms of “torture”, bleet, when compared to waterboarding?
Tell me, bleet, do you think the Allies were wrong in effecting the Dresden and Tokyo bombings in WWII? What about Hiroshima & Nagasaki? The reductio of your logic tends to point in the direction of your condemning these actions, but perhaps, like many of us, you agree with them but regret the suffering that ensued.
As bourrie refuses to answer the question above, bleet, why don’t you: with the clock ticking down to another 9/11 – or worse – would you approve of applying waterboarding or enhanced interrogation techniques to a terrorist to prevent attack, or would you prefer to watch thousands of innocents die?
No speeches, equivocations or any of your other non-sequiturious BS, please. Just a simple answer will suffice: aye, or nay.
Which is it, bleet?
mhb
MHB
My proof that waterboarding is torture is the common consensus that waterboarding is torture for the last century, as well as all the sources I’ve cited above, as well as people like Robert Baer, field officer for the CIA in the Middle East, who was tortured himself by the Iranians…as well as McCain, who was also tortured.
Your statement that my ‘proof’ is based on Hitchen’s claim is a lie, since I’ve provided the many other ‘proofs’ above.
Frankly it is only after-the-fact revisionists like yourself and ET who claim that waterboarding isn’t torture.
Since all the sources I’ve cited above have stated torture is ineffective, your straw man argument, likely harvested from an episode of ’24’, breaks down quite quickly. As the most successful interrogator of Al Queda, Ali Soufan said, the torturee will say anything to stop the torturing – and why would that ‘anything’ be the truth?
So the upshot of your false scenario would be: torture would be quite ineffective in stopping the fantastical attack. It would be a waste of time which would send forces on a wild goose chase when actual methods that really work could be applied, in order to stop the attack and save lives.
All that is achieved by torture is a waste of time, and the sacrifice of Western values and ideals which is, you know, what we’re supposed to be fighting for – and that’s according to the top officials of the FBI and CIA.
The other thing that’s achieved, I guess, is allowing people like you to feel ‘tough’ and to act as though in doing so you’re more passionate and vigilant about defending our society. All the data, though, shows, that quite the opposite is true – torture is not only ineffective but injurious to the cause of democracy. You’re propounding an ineffective policy simply because you want to feel tough and compensate, one presumes, for some inner deficiency you feel about yourself.
I’m sorry, MHB, but that’s too high a price to pay when the defense of our society and its values hangs in the balance.
The only thing one may “presume” from your windy response, bleet, is that you’re incapable of, or afraid, to answer a simple yes/no question.
I’ll wager I’m not the only one unsurprised by this.
mhb
And I’ll wager that you have hard time comprehending that reality doesn’t correspond to the childish, ‘manly’ heroics of your favourite TV show daydreams, MHB.
But you keep fantasizing, guy. The rest of us will defeat the enemy the way we defeated the Nazis and all the other evil forces of the last century – without torture. After all, as Ali Soufan, the FBI’s most successful interrogator of Al Queda noted: “the use of violence against detainees is Al Queda’s way, not the American way.”
So keep fantasizing in front of that TV, MHB. The grown-ups will finish this one up.
Yup. Tough-talkin’ people hiding behind nicknames, reading Soldier of Fortune, watching Dirty Harry and strapping on their imaginary balls.
Bourie’s ignorance of the facts of the ’95 plot show that he is poorly informed on the subject on which he pretends to be so well informed.
So answer this simple question Mark, is your contention that harsh interrogation doesn’t work? I am just curious, because there is evidence that it does. Or is your contention that harsh interrogation is so morally repugnant that it would be better to suffer thousands of civilian casualties (that would be horrifying, drawn out deaths of men with their families, unaccompanied children, innocents of every kind that find themselves on an aircraft) than use it? Or is that that there is some proven third method that can get the information in a timely manner.
There is no third choice Mark. Any third choice you come up with is an unsubstantiated fantasy, or takes years and only works after the information is no longer important. I tell you one thing, if there is another attack, Obama owns it. It is going to be hard to blame it on Bush. 9-11 was planned while Clinton was president, nobody blames him.
Let’s see the evidence. Real facts, not just your statements. I’m tired of you fascists claiming evidence exists, then walking away whistling when I ask you to put up or shut up.