The Angry Hand of God: General Pershing Approves!

Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

vernonFL: Sardonic_Padre: Which begs the question: Why hasn't the previous administration been brought up on charges?

I don't know. There seems to me to be more than enough evidence for a grand jury.

Because he didn't sleep with anyone in the Oval Office. You only get charged if you have sex in the Oval Office.

zepplinrules: salon

Let the record show the messenger was duly attacked.

SnakeLee: doglover: torch: So where are the doctors who wrote up these guidelines, and why are they not living naked in a leper colony right now?

Because torture works. 10000 years is a long ass time. If torture didn't work, we'd have stop doing it to each other by now.

I really want to respond to this but I think it's probably a troll and I was already trolled pretty bad today

I'll respond to troll (just in case)

First,
Homo sapiens have been around for a lot longer than 10,000 years.
Do you believe we hung out with dinosaurs too?

Also,
Since slavery has been with us for much longer than not, we should examine the benefits of having Canadian slaves.

Also,
Torture doesn't work. It works to extract information the interrogator wants to know. If you tell him the truth, and he doesn't want to hear that, you're going to get some more of that torture.

I guarantee I could get Dick Cheney to admit he raped his daughter and eats poo sandwiches. No problem.

This angers me as much as it angers any other farker. It's shameful and should be criminal.

But it's a salon.com article... what it's lacking is a link to the relevant CIA documents. I found a bunch of docs on the ACLU website that might contain this info, but it's hundreds and hundreds of pages that would take days to wade through. If the author of this article wanted to have a real impact, he'd link his claims to the relevant CIA documents.

l0wk3y: Torture is effective for confirming what you already know wished were true or suspect from other sources.

FIFY.
Why, to confirm suspicions, would you use a tool specifically designed to get false information?
Most likely, because your "suspicions" are incorrect and you know it?

I hate to break it to you, but torture does work. Yes, false confessions and the like are common, but that is why it takes a skilled/well trained torturer to get really useful information from the crap. Think of a diagnostic code reader for a car, most of us couldn't make heads or tails from the information, but a mechanic can.

Read "The Manipulation of Human Behavior" by Biderman and Zimmer. Known as "The Torture Bible".

The powers that be don't want you to think it works because then more people would do it.

punkhippie: Every person responsible for this needs to hang.

Or at least spend the rest of their lives in a nice PMITA prison. I could live with that.


Your logic is not internally consistent.

Sardonic_Padre: Which begs the question: Why hasn't the previous administration been brought up on charges?

I'm gonna go with 'because it's still going on.'

The Angry Hand of God: General Pershing Approves!

Ahem:

Black Jack Pershing Urban Legend (new window)

Snopes (new window)

Turns out you may want to thank Colonel Alexander Rodgers, not Pershing.

BummerDuck: Is it digested that fast? or what? I've tossed up milk, so...not sure I see the upside to Ensure

If you turn someone so that their mouth is lower than their lungs, a fluid will eventually drain out. A half-chewed bowl of frosted mini-wheats will not.

Disclaimer: I am 100% against torture in any form. There can never be a valid, moral reason to use it. Period.

Now, one thing I do want to clear up:

Most info you get from it is bad. BUT, in very narrow circumstances, torture IS VERY EFFECTIVE (yet of course, still TOTALLY immoral). Example: Let's say you are walking up to an outside ATM machine late one evening. Me and some thungs grab you and throw you in the back of our van. They hold you while take a pair of bolt cutters and put them around your pinky finger and ask for your PIN number. Keep in mind, I'm not fishing for intel you MIGHT know, I'm asking for info that I KNOW YOU HAVE. Now let's say for whatever reason you don't give it to me. I then cut off that finger and ask again. Let's say you then give me the WRONG PIN on purpose. I try it, and it fails. I go back to the van and finish cutting off all the fingers on that hand, get ready to work on the other hand, and ask you again. Eventually you WILL give me your pin number. A VERY narrow and very EXTREME example. I'm sure people better aquainted with military intelligence matters could provide a better one.

My main point here is that saying 'most of what you will get is bad' simply allows the proponent of waterboarding or cutting fingers to say "Well, we'll just get more effective techniques" or "We'll build on what works and fine tune it." (I've heard both arguments BTW.) Even if it worked just fine, we should NEVER allow it.

Trust me when I say this.

This stuff is child's play.

That so called "torture" is nothing, NOTHING compared to what I would do to those animals to gather information that would either
A: lead to an arrest of another scumbacg animal terrorist coward
Or
B: lead to info that would stop an attack.

Lucky for your pansies that it's the CIA doing those interrogations and not me.

wage0048: The torture was going to happen with or without medical guidance, so the people who provided said guidance were not causing any harm at all.

The Geneva declarion, biatches: "I will not use my medical knowledge to violate human rights and civil liberties, even under threat"

But with Cheney et al. flushing the country's principles and - dare I say it? - honor down the crapper, I guess it's only logical that such outmoded concepts as medical ethics come next.

This is why torture doesn't work:

The CIA's waterboarding regimen was so excruciating, the memos show, that agency officials found themselves grappling with an unexpected development: detainees simply gave up and tried to let themselves drown. "In our limited experience, extensive sustained use of the waterboard can introduce new risks," the CIA's Office of Medical Services wrote in its 2003 memo. "Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue or psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness."

"declaration", even.

From TFA:* Continue Reading

I rather not.

Wow, choking on your own vomit. I wonder how that compares to being incinerated in an exploding airplane, or having ones head removed with a knife. Because almost certainly one of those vomit-chokers has saved a life or two with information gleaned from the judicious use of this non-lethal interrogation.

No, let's not use this method all the time to get answers. But how about using it on people who are confirmed terrorists with information that will save the lives of people who don't spend their time figuring out how to bring as much malice to the world as possible. Have it be cleared by a chain of command before using methods like this, but have it available because someday the stakes may be radioactive or viral, and wouldn't it be nice to have such a tool available to use to find out when/where the event would occur?

Hell, if it bothers you that much we can give them counseling afterwords so they can get their mind straight and get back to the business of figuring the best ways to slaughter people without being distracted by memories of a couple bad days answering questions.

Any other biatching about how terrible it is completely misses the point of interrogating someone who makes it a habit of sowing destruction for information that they do not wish to reveal, that has the potential to save the lives of people who are not trying to murder everyone who doesn't believe what they do. It has to be uncomfortable or they won't tell you.

Oh, and if you were in their camp you wouldn't be choking on anything other than your own body parts because I'm sure waterboarding is wayyyy down the list of common techniques that would be used on you whether or not you had anything of value to provide. Just because you are their enemy. Because you don't believe what they do. And they don't answer polite questions.

The ITGs are out in force today.

Not sure if proud anymore.

/Hot

mikroky: Wow, choking on your own vomit. I wonder how that compares to being incinerated in an exploding airplane, or having ones head removed with a knife. Because almost certainly one of those vomit-chokers has saved a life or two with information gleaned from the judicious use of this non-lethal interrogation.

( 2 * wrong ) != right

vernonFL: Sardonic_Padre: Which begs the question: Why hasn't the previous administration been brought up on charges?

I don't know. There seems to me to be more than enough evidence for a grand jury.

Exactly. This is the type of bull shiat that should not be allowed to continue. No one should be exempt from the law, not even the president. You should not be able to sit in front of congress and say "I don't know" for 6 hours and just walk out. Your ass should be strung up and hung out to dry until you admit you farked up. Karl Rove, Cheeny and Bush should be the first three to get their collective asses locked up, then everyone else who had a hand in this crap.

dittybopper: Sardonic_Padre: Which begs the question: Why hasn't the previous administration been brought up on charges?

Hope and Same.

:(
I like Obama, but you are right. I don't see him doing enough to correct the problems that have been plaguing the Oval Office and both branches of the gov't for the last 20 years.

sparrow794: Sardonic_Padre: Which begs the question: Why hasn't the previous administration been brought up on charges?

I'm gonna go with 'because it's still going on.'

I don't believe it is still happening. At least i hope it's not.

Sentry1407: Trust me when I say this.

This stuff is child's play.

That so called "torture" is nothing, NOTHING compared to what I would do to those animals to gather information that would either
A: lead to an arrest of another scumbacg animal terrorist coward
Or
B: lead to info that would stop an attack.

Lucky for your pansies that it's the CIA doing those interrogations and not me.

Wow. Freakin' hardcore... Sir, I am sufficiently knocked on my ass in sheer awe of your exquisite toughness. A salute is in order!

The unfortunate thing about trolls in these sorts of threads is that when I think of the people who really do believe the shiat the trolls put out. The idea of such sick, pathetic people is almost mindboggling. Serial killers make more sense.

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture"

"During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone. We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

Link (new window)

Sentry1407: Trust me when I say this.

This stuff is child's play.

That so called "torture" is nothing, NOTHING compared to what I would do to those animals to gather information that would either
A: lead to an arrest of another scumbacg animal terrorist coward
Or
B: lead to info that would stop an attack.

Lucky for your pansies that it's the CIA doing those interrogations and not me.

trueaustinite:
You sound really tough.

Forcing them to drink Ensure is against international law forbidding chemical warfare. It's better to just wait 12 hours.

I rather not.

Aww, but then you would miss the bit about them being ready to administer tracheotomies.

ObscureBacon: this is what they tell you. think of the things they don't tell you.

The next stage is they make you drink Jevity.

The Culinary Institute of America should not be endorsing dietary products.

I'm getting waterboarded right now, so I'm really getting a kURRGHGGHGHGHUBBLE HEUUUUUURKHKHKH GAHHHRGHGHGHBBLE UUUUURRRRGHGHGHGHGHGHGBLUBLUBLUBLUBLUBGLURB

If this wasn't the land of the free we'd just let em choke on it. Look how considerate we are! America the beautiful!

Cubicle Jockey:
Aww, but then you would miss the bit about them being ready to administer tracheotomies.

Dude, you've so got something there. Trach 'em, then just dip a hose on the cannula end into a glass of water.

/Talk, Achmed, or you get the Perrier again!

mikroky: No, let's not use this method all the time to get answers. But how about using it on people who are confirmed terrorists with information that will save the lives of people who don't spend their time figuring out how to bring as much malice to the world as possible. Have it be cleared by a chain of command before using methods like this, but have it available because someday the stakes may be radioactive or viral, and wouldn't it be nice to have such a tool available to use to find out when/where the event would occur?

What's a confirmed terrorist? Is there like a membership card you can get, and they have special stamps and Terror Points™ or something?

If you could just look at someone and know that they were a terrorist, it seems that torture could be replaced by simply asking everyone to just stand in line while you pick out the bad'uns.

TheyCallThisWork: What's a confirmed terrorist? Is there like a membership card you can get, and they have special stamps and Terror Points™ or something?

I wonder if they get frequent flyer miles!

/not that they need them

and they have special stamps and Terror Points™ or something?

Yeah, but they kinda suck. It takes like 5,000 Terror Points just to get a small Samsonite bag.

mikroky: Oh, and if you were in their camp you wouldn't be choking on anything other than your own body parts because I'm sure waterboarding is wayyyy down the list of common techniques that would be used on you whether or not you had anything of value to provide. Just because you are their enemy. Because you don't believe what they do. And they don't answer polite questions.

Their evil does not justify us becoming evil. We should not do these things. "Well, it's not as bad as they would do..." is not a moral or ethical justification for an abhorrent act of calculated malice. Didn't your mother ever teach you two wrongs don't make a right?

We are better than them. It is not enough that we remain just barely better. We need to be objectively good, not just relatively.

And yes, sticking to our principles may cost us in the short run. But I am not so afraid of death that I will compromise the very basis for my beliefs and my country just to cling to life a little longer.

Hey, that vomiting isn't necessarily a sign of torture. It could be a comfort puke.

TheyCallThisWork: What's a confirmed terrorist? Is there like a membership card you can get, and they have special stamps and Terror Points™ or something?

A confirmed terrorist is one whose crimes have been proven through a fair and impartial trial conducted according to the rule of law . . . Er, wait. Nevermind.

A point that proponents of torture never mention:

It's very easy to overcome the use of torture by the enemy's leaders. They are the ones who control the information that the ones carrying out attacks receive. A concerted effort to feed them false information in case of capture is a simple, effective anti-torture tool. It's not as if the terrorist leaders actually care about whether or not the attackers return safely from a suicide mission.

Torture is actually a useful tool for the ENEMY you asshats. It's conducive to false information when you factor in the way information is disseminated (isolated cells and all).

All the people who believe it's just a "recruiting tool" haven't really thought it through.

Torture = Bad for America AND useful for our enemies in spreading false information

We need to stop giving aid to this.