So we only water boarded one guy? I mean jeez, we had hundreds of them and we found the time to torture one? Not really a constructive use of our time.

But hey, at least it created more terrorists!

From TFA: In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations.

Now we'll let the 101st Fighting Keyboardists defend waterboarding.

Color me shocked.

"We used only a small subset of techniques, from techniques H to O"

Other than the fact that Jack Bauer never has to use a washroom, how is 24 not an accurate depiction of life in USA 2009?

I_Am_Weasel: "We used only a small subset of techniques, from techniques H to O"

Other than the fact that Jack Bauer never has to use a washroom, how is 24 not an accurate depiction of life in USA 2009?

i'm pretty sure that most people find time to visit the bathroom at least once during a 24 hour period.

So as with everything, when two people in positions of power tell completely contradictory stories people select which of said officials is telling them the information they want to hear and praise them while damning the other as a liar and a shill.

You mean...Dick Cheney would lie to me?

/shocked.
//no really.

Waterboarding will be quite useful for acquiring intelligence when Glenn Beck and the 101st Keyboardists have their civil war.

Wait, did I say useful? I meant fun.

Read between the lines and you'll realize that all the really important (i.e., knowledgeable) captives bragged about their exploits. No torture was needed to get them to talk, while those who talked under duress revealed nothing of import.

Please, PLEASE, PLEASE, Mr President...repudiate in no uncertain terms these techniques and put safeguards in place to ensure they are not used again by any arm of the US Gov't. As it is, our military men and women will pay the price for this particular Bush/Cheney criminality for a generation to come.

Remember how waterboarding yielded critical information used to foil several terror plots?

No...not really.

From TFA: Others in the U.S. government, including CIA officials, fear the consequences of taking a man into court who was waterboarded on largely false assumptions, because of the prospect of interrogation methods being revealed in detail and because of the chance of an acquittal that might set a legal precedent. Instead, they would prefer to send him to Jordan.

That, right there, is farking disgusting. "We can't him let him into our court system because it might be shown how horrible we really are and he might be set free because he didn't do anything that we can prove and we tortured him anyway."

Between the "terrorist" and the CIA officials, I certainly know which I would like to see sent to some dodgy prison in Jordan.

Disgusting farks.

So you lost your soul, became a world pariah, created thousands of potential terrorists and you came away with, nothing?

I'd like to see Rush Limbaugh, Shawn Hannity, Michaal Savage, and the rest of the so-called conservative pundit crowd at Gitmo, living with "enhanced interrogation" and without access to any lawyers. Any guess as to how long those tough guys would last? I would say maybe 30 minutes.

Obviously Cheney and Bush were complete amateurs about interrogation techniques and intelligence gathering. The closest they ever came to experiencing such was from what they saw on TV or were spoon-fed.

Just another fine mess they've gotten us into.

But but but... torture good. If it wasn't for torture think of the hundreds of thousands of werewolves, witches, vampires, and satanic beings that would still be around instead of rightfully burnt at the stake after admitting their crime. Waterboarding this man did the same thing. It was to protect us from some evil boogieman in the dark.

Phil Moskowitz: So you lost your soul, became a world pariah, created thousands of potential terrorists and you came away with, nothing?

Countries don't have souls.

And if they did, every country would have lost its soul.

Llama.

Abu Zubaida was shot during his seizure, nursed back to health with the specific intent to get him healthy enough to torture, while in custody it became obvious he was seriously mentally ill and he was still tortured despite his delicate mental condition.

Obdicut: Phil Moskowitz: So you lost your soul, became a world pariah, created thousands of potential terrorists and you came away with, nothing?

Countries don't have souls.

And if they did, every country would have lost its soul.

Llama.

brainiac-dumdum: Abu Zubaida was shot during his seizure, nursed back to health with the specific intent to get him healthy enough to torture, while in custody it became obvious he was seriously mentally ill and he was still tortured despite his delicate mental condition.

I really wonder how quickly it'll all come to light. I guess that largely depends on Obama. Might take a long time, if he, well not covers up, but does not vociferously investigate.

The gay stuff, the dogs barking at their wieners, the lap dances from chicks on the rag, the getting beaten up by guards, the sleep deprivation, and the being made to finger their buttholes in front of a bunch of people yielded important information like Arab guys don't like that sort of stuff much and apparently Republicans did some pretty farked up things when they were in frats in college.

Remember how waterboarding yielded critical information used to foil several terror plots?

No.

Obdicut: brainiac-dumdum: Abu Zubaida was shot during his seizure, nursed back to health with the specific intent to get him healthy enough to torture, while in custody it became obvious he was seriously mentally ill and he was still tortured despite his delicate mental condition.

I really wonder how quickly it'll all come to light. I guess that largely depends on Obama. Might take a long time, if he, well not covers up, but does not vociferously investigate.

I'm not sure we'll ever really know for sure just how far the CIA (and maybe other organizations) went when it came to 'aggressive interrogation'. I do know that the CIA is on record as destroying evidence of at least some of their torture sessions. It's likely that the destruction of records was far more widespread than the press ever knew, and that other intelligence agencies were involved.

Phil Moskowitz:

To quote myself:

And if they did, every country would have lost its soul..

We lost our souls with Manifest Destiny. We lost our souls with slavery. We lost our souls with strike-busting. We lost our souls with Japanese internment. We lost our souls with Jim Crow. We lost our souls with the Phillipine occupation. We lost our soles with the Dole company. We lost our souls with Iran/Contra.

This is not a justification of anything at all. Are we getting better or worse? It looked like better, for awhile, then worse, then better, then worse again. It looks like we may be getting better.

Putting it in hyperbolic, paradigmatic ways is silly.

Spain is looking in to pressing charges against six Bush Admin officials for torture at Gitmo. The same judge that that brought charges against Pinochet has agreed to send the case to prosecutors to investigate.

CBS (new window)

Obdicut: We lost our soles with the Dole company.

heh.

When torturing someone, they will tell you whatever you want to hear to make you stop. Or whatever they think you want to hear.

Want to hear a US Navy pilot admit to war crimes by the US in a signed document? Done. Ask John McCain.

Want to hear al Qaeda fully confess to assassinating JFK? Just torture someone. Anyone. They don't even have to be al Qaeda.

With this sort of intel, we'd never lose!

Obdicut: I really wonder how quickly it'll all come to light. I guess that largely depends on Obama. Might take a long time, if he, well not covers up, but does not vociferously investigate.

More and more, we're finding out that the people involved in these sort of things were acting under extreme pressure and duress. I think people will come forward on their own, and we won't really have a need for any sort of official investigation.

at any rate, the fastest way to turn the country back over to the kinds of assholes who did this, is to start a huge divisive investigation.

If people come forward on their own, even if they do so anonymously, the information they reveal will have much more weight than if it were revealed in an investigation sanctioned by the government.

If it were revealed in such an investigation, people would just say it was a partisan witch hunt, and none of it was true, etc, etc.

If they do so on their own, without pressure, people will believe it, and once enough evidence is amassed, there may be grounds for a trial of some sort.

As heinous as all of this has been, nothing, I mean nothing, is as bad as the assholes that still defend this reprehensible rejection of everything this country once stood for.

Congratulations - you have proved, beyond any doubt, what the conservatives in the 60s were predicting - that the United States was losing its moral compass. The sweet irony is that they were blaming the liberals for this when it was their party that was responsible for it all that time.

How does that make you feel?

randomjsa: So as with everything, when two people in positions of power tell completely contradictory stories people select which of said officials is telling them the information they want to hear and praise them while damning the other as a liar and a shill.

randomjsa: two people in positions of power tell completely contradictory stories

THIS is how far the backwards Bush-apologists have fallen. Apparently, torture committed by the US government is now just an intractable case of "he said, she said".

Just pathetic.

Hmmmmmmm.. Now we probably be a grand time to go over to freeperville or LGF and see what's going there.

Weaver95: Obdicut: We lost our soles with the Dole company.

heh.

Don't forget Liberia, we screwed them over for Firestone.

Peter von Nostrand: Hmmmmmmm.. Now we probably be a grand time to go over to freeperville or LGF and see what's going there.

Most likely planning their overthrow of the country as soon as they can figure out how to establish a new Confederacy without leaving their parents' basements, same as usual.

Yesdog: randomjsa: two people in positions of power tell completely contradictory stories

THIS is how far the backwards Bush-apologists have fallen. Apparently, torture committed by the US government is now just an intractable case of "he said, she said".

Just pathetic.

Well, the thread a few down about Obama and deficits is pretty amusing too. Not pathetic but amusing nonetheless for the sheer cognitive dissonance of it all.

they're rich terrorists...they can deal with higher taxes torture

Crocodilly_Pontifex: More and more, we're finding out that the people involved in these sort of things were acting under extreme pressure and duress. I think people will come forward on their own, and we won't really have a need for any sort of official investigation.

I hope so.

Crocodilly_Pontifex: If people come forward on their own, even if they do so anonymously, the information they reveal will have much more weight than if it were revealed in an investigation sanctioned by the government.

I'm just worried that the stakes were raised so high that many people are afraid to come clean because they know what they'd be coming clean to would be a high crime. I also feel like what's happened so far-- prosecution of low-level personnel in the armed forces, in pyramid fashion, rather than greater punishment on the commanders-- is daunting to anyone who would come forwards.

However, it's equally daunting if there is an investigation, so, yes, I see your point. Especially since the Republicans are so shiat-scared right now.

A Dark Evil Omen: Peter von Nostrand: Hmmmmmmm.. Now we probably be a grand time to go over to freeperville or LGF and see what's going there.

Most likely planning their overthrow of the country as soon as they can figure out how to establish a new Confederacy without leaving their parents' basements, same as usual.

Well, it does take a lot of Cheetos and Mountain Dew to start and sustain a revolution. So you gotta plan things out like that.

Obdicut: I really wonder how quickly it'll all come to light. I guess that largely depends on Obama. Might take a long time, if he, well not covers up, but does not vociferously investigate.


It's not going to matter much how fast or slow we investigate this, because other countries are doing it for us anyway. Spain, for example, is on the verge of launching a criminal investigation into all of the Bush Admin lawyers involved with the torture regime. And it's being handled by the same judge who went after Pinochet. If it moves forward, guys like Gonzales, Yoo, Haynes, etc. will find it very difficult to leave the U.S. without being arrested.

Once they're on trial, it's only a matter of time before things move farther up the ladder to their bosses.

The Bush Administration never cared if people were innocent or guilty, mentally ill, or knowledgeable about terrorist plans. They burned through detainees and when they were done with them, locked them away for years and years. They never cared about the Geneva Conventions and they got a bunch of shill lawyers to pull legal excuses out of their asses in order to make it happen.

It's like getting pulled over for going 40mph over the speed limit and then telling the officer that the lawyer sitting next to you said you could do it; you're still busted.

More lefties masturbating about war crimes trials for Bush.

Keep jerkin'.

Giltric: they're rich terrorists...they can deal with higher taxes torture

Of course. Raising taxes on the ultra-wealthy so that they can actually support the country that they have taken so very, very much from is morally equivalent to torture of people who may or may not have done anything to extract confessions of questionable validity. That makes so little much sense!

Peter von Nostrand: Hmmmmmmm.. Now we probably be a grand time to go over to freeperville or LGF and see what's going there.

And today's culprit is - wait for it - women. (new window complete with new delusions).

Shryke: More lefties masturbating about war crimes trials for Bush.

Keep jerkin'.

Looks like Spain might do our dirty work for us.

Remember how waterboarding yielded critical information used to foil several terror plots?

Car_Ramrod: No...not really.

Murkanen: No

Seriously? Link (new window)

Random Reality Check: Peter von Nostrand: Hmmmmmmm.. Now we probably be a grand time to go over to freeperville or LGF and see what's going there.

And today's culprit is - wait for it - women. (new window complete with new delusions).

First Eve, now this.

Shryke: More lefties masturbating about war crimes trials for Bush.

Keep jerkin'.

Can you believe that any American actually would want justice?
What the hell are all these lefties thinking?

brainiac-dumdum: Random Reality Check: Peter von Nostrand: Hmmmmmmm.. Now we probably be a grand time to go over to freeperville or LGF and see what's going there.

And today's culprit is - wait for it - women. (new window complete with new delusions).

First Eve, now this.

And that Lilith.
Porn has never been the same on account of her.

Oh, so your saying the republicans lied.

What a shock.

/no it isn't.
//may they rot in hell.

Snowflake Tubbybottom: So we only water boarded one guy? I mean jeez, we had hundreds of them and we found the time to torture one? Not really a constructive use of our time.

Even the Bushies admitted to at least three cases. Not a lot, but still too many.

Give me no hope of getting out, torture me, and threaten to torture me more if I don't help you out, and I'm pretty sure I'll tell you I flew a plane into the Pentagon myself.