By Dennis Loo
On December 13, 2008 the New York Times published the following OpEd by Reuel Marc Gerecht, ex-CIA officer and a member of Foundation for Defense of Democracies. FDD is a neocon think tank that includes Steve Forbes, Bill Kristol, Jack Kemp, Louis J. Freeh, Joseph Lieberman, Newt Gingrich, Max Kampelman, Robert Macfarlane, and James Woolsey. FDD’s Board of Advisors are Gary Bauer, Rep. Eric Cantor, Frank Gaffney, Gene Gately, Charles Jacobs, General P.X. Kelley, Charles Krauthammer, Hon. Richard D. Lamm, Kathleen Troia “KT” McFarland, Sen. Zell Miller, Richard Perle, Steven Pomerantz, Oliver “Buck” Revell, Hon. Francis J. “Bing” West (This list courtesy of Wikipedia).
In his OpEd Gerecht postulates a “ticking time bomb” scenario:
“[I]f we’d gotten our hands on a senior member of Al Qaeda before 9/11, and knew that an attack likely to kill thousands of Americans was imminent, wouldn’t waterboarding, or taking advantage of the skills of our Jordanian friends, have been the sensible, moral thing to do with a holy warrior who didn’t fear death but might have feared pain?”
Interestingly, the US government did have information about a pending attack on the US, with the World Trade Center Twin Towers specifically mentioned by more than one source. What did the Bush White House do about this?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Not only did they have information, they had a great deal of information, from diverse and multiple sources, all without engaging in rendition and without employing torture. Imagine that: you can actually get useful information without drowning people, beating them to a pulp, suffocating them or sending electricity through their genitals? Fancy that.
In my book, Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney, you will find this abbreviated list, in Chapter 14 by Peter Phillips, Bridget Thornton, Lew Brown and Andrew Sloan, of what the White House knew before 9/11:
“A significant portion of the GDG [Global Dominance Group] had every opportunity to know in advance that the 9/11 attacks were imminent. Afghanistan, Argentina, Britain, the Cayman Islands, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Russia, and from within the U.S. the intelligence community all warned the U.S. of imminent terrorist attacks. Some of the 9/11 prewarnings include:
“1996–2001: Federal authorities knew that suspected terrorists with ties to bin Laden received flight training at schools in the U.S. and abroad. An Oklahoma City FBI agent sent a memo warning that ‘large numbers of Middle Eastern males’ were getting flight training and could have been planning terrorist attacks. (CBS, May 30, 2002.) One convicted terrorist confessed that his planned role in a terror attack was to crash a plane into CIA headquarters. (Washington Post, September 23, 2001.)
“JUNE of 2001: German intelligence warned the CIA, Britain’s intelligence agency, and Israel’s Mossad that Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons to attack ‘American and Israeli symbols which stand out.’ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 11, 2001; Washington Post, September 14, 2001; Fox News, May 17, 2002.)
“JUNE 28, 2001: George Tenet wrote an intelligence summary to Condoleezza Rice stating, ‘It is highly likely that a significant al-Qaeda attack is in the near future, within several weeks.’ (Washington Post, February 17, 2002.)
“JUNE–JULY 2001: President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and national security aides were given briefs with headlines such as ‘Bin Laden Threats Are Real’ and ‘Bin Laden Planning High Profile Attacks.’ The exact contents of these briefings remain classified, but according to the 9/11 Commission, they consistently predicted upcoming attacks that would occur ‘on a catastrophic level, indicating that they would cause the world to be in turmoil, consisting of possible multiple—but not necessarily simultaneous—attacks.’ (9/11 Commission Report, April 13, 2004.)
“JULY 26, 2001: Attorney General Ashcroft stopped flying commercial airlines because of a threat assessment. (CBS, July 26, 2001.) The report of this warning was omitted from the 9/11 Commission Report. (Griffin, May 22, 2005.)
“AUGUST 6, 2001: President Bush received a classified intelligence briefing at his Crawford, Texas ranch, warning that bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial airliners; this briefing was entitled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the United States.’ The entire memo focused on the possibility of terrorist attacks inside the U.S. and specifically mentioned the World Trade Center. (Newsweek, May 27, 2002; New York Times, May 15, 2002; Washington Post, April 11, 2004; White House, April 11, 2004; Intelligence Briefing, August 6, 2001.)
AUGUST, 2001: Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the U.S. that suicide pilots were training for attacks on U.S. targets. (Fox News, May 17, 2002.) The head of Russian intelligence also later stated, ‘We had clearly warned them’ on several occasions, but they ‘did not pay the necessary attention.’ (Agence France-Presse, September 16, 2001.)
SEPTEMBER 10, 2001: a group of top Pentagon officials received an urgent warning that prompted them to cancel their flight plans for the following morning. (Newsweek, September 17, 2001.) The 9/11 Commission Report omitted this report. (Griffin, May 22, 2005.)”
***
So why did they not do anything to forestall or minimize the damage from this imminent threat?
They did nothing because obtaining intelligence is not the nub of the question. Torturing people and rendering them to other countries so that the US can deny that it tortured them are not designed to extract useful intelligence. Torture-extracted information is information given under pain of death by victims who want the pain to stop and will tell the torturer what they think the torturer wants to hear. Abu Zubaydah, one of the three detainees that NSA Chief Michael Hayden has admitted were waterboarded, was and is mentally ill and sent US interrogators chasing after ghosts from his “confessions” under torture.
The “ticking time bomb” scenario allegedly necessitating the use of torture is a false premise for multiple reasons. I won’t go into all of them here. Let the following suffice for now. Any scoundrel could cite an alleged “ticking time bomb” as a justification at any time. Is this the kind of world that we want to live in where anyone has license, as long as he or she cites the suspicion that there’s a bomb about to go off, to torture someone? This is why international law makes crystal clear that torture is at all times and under all circumstances unjust, immoral, illegal and barbaric.
Those who want to claim, as does Gerecht, that “we’re the good guys” and “they’re the bad guys” and “when we torture people we do it morally” are either trying to fool others or are engaging in self-deception as well as duplicity. By this standard, anyone and everyone can claim that they’re the “good guys.” It’s all subjective.
The “ticking time bomb” scenario rests upon a specific kind of immoral arithmetic: other people’s lives aren’t as important as our lives. Or to be more specific, American lives are more valuable than non-Americans’ lives. A particularly telling example of this comes from Michael Ignatieff.
Ignatieff is director of Harvard’s Carr Center of Human Rights Policy. A liberal hawk, he endorsed the invasion of Iraq and wrote in the January 5, 2003 New York Times Magazine an essay tellingly entitled “The American Empire (Get Used to It).” On May 2, 2004, in an essay entitled “Lesser Evil,” echoing Dick Cheney, he opined:
To defeat evil, we may have to traffic in evils: indefinite detention of suspects, coercive interrogations, targeted assassinations, even pre-emptive war. These are evils because each strays from national and international law and because they kill people or deprive them of freedom without due process. They can be justified only because they prevent the greater evil.
As I wrote in my book, “Ignatieff’s ‘greater evil,’ he explains, is a second terrorist attack on the US. According to his logic, then, the killing of more than 100,000 Iraqis [now at 1.2 million and counting] due to our invasion and occupation, in addition to the ongoing ‘coercive interrogations’ of Iraqis and others, are the ‘lesser evil.’ This must mean that the greater evil was when Saddam tortured and killed Iraqis but when Americans torture and kill Iraqis it’s the lesser evil. I’m glad we got that straight.” (p. 99)
The fact that Iraq had nothing to do whatsoever with 9/11 does not even enter into Michael – Mr. Human Rights – Ignatieff’s calculations.
***
Obama, we should note, endorses the “war on terror” on the explicit basis that American lives are more important than others’ and that the American Empire must continue to exist and dominate the rest of the world. This worldview led Obama as a US Senator to allow the Military Commissions Act of 2006–“legalizing” torture and stripping habeas corpus rights from “unlawful enemy combatants”–to pass without filibustering it or pointing out its immoral logic. It may well lead him to fulfill some portion or more of Mr. Gerecht’s prediction.
***
Mark Danner, in his book, Torture and Truth, cites a French Colonel’s comment on Algeria to underscore the point that if you accept the “rightness” of occupation and imperial dominance, then you also accept the actions that must per force follow from that:
“Should we remain in Algeria? If you answer “yes,” then you must accept all the necessary consequences.”
—Colonel Philippe Mathieu, The Battle of Algiers (1965)
***
By REUEL MARC GERECHT
Prague
FEW post-9/11 issues have produced more anxiety and revulsion than the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of “aggressive interrogation” and the extrajudicial rendition of terrorist suspects to countries that practice torture. President-elect Barack Obama has promised to ban waterboarding and other pain-inflicting soliciting techniques, as well as rendition. He has also promised to close the Guantánamo Bay prison.
More broadly, liberal Democrats in Congress intend to deploy a more moral counterterrorism, where the ends — stopping the slaughter of civilians by Islamic holy warriors — no longer justifies reprehensible means. Winning the hearts and minds of foreigners by remaining true to our nobler virtues is now seen as the way to defeat our enemies while preserving our essential goodness.
Sounds uplifting. Don’t bet on it happening.
Mr. Obama will soon face the same awful choices that confronted George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and he could well be forced to accept a central feature of their anti-terrorist methods: extraordinary rendition. If the choice is between non-deniable aggressive questioning conducted by Americans and deniable torturous interrogations by foreigners acting on behalf of the United States, it is almost certain that as president Mr. Obama will choose the latter.
You do indeed waste your time with me when you prioritize a terrorist’s comfort level over thousands of innocent lives.
I see that I have wasted my time with you Alex. You have set yourself up as expert on what is and isn’t torture above and beyond those who propound and have propounded international law. You must be very impressed with your level of erudition.
1. These definitions are RIDICULOUS. I’ll fully acknowledge that we should not have prosecuted anyone during World War II for waterboarding as a war crime. There were FAR bigger fish to fry during WWII, and it is a DISGRACE that this is being lumped in with REAL torture.
2. Then why don’t the rip off our soldiers’ fingernails, cut off their tongues, pull them apart from opposite ends on the rack, or gouge out their eyes?
3. Because they are no worse for the wear after the fact. Also, the military should not be involved in setting intelligence-gathering methods. Their job is on the battlefield, and they are the ones who should be doing the interrogating. That should be left to the CIA. If you’re going to bring up Hitchens, I don’t think he’s suffered any lasting damage. And our not waterboarding our detainees is not going to prevent our enemies from beheading theirs. This is not a quid-pro-quo.
4. I’ve seen the Abu Ghraib photos, there were atrocities beyond waterboarding committed there, done for the purpose of humiliation and not to gather life-saving information. But more importantly, these atrocities were committed by individual soldiers who are currently in prison for what they did.
5. How many people has waterboarding actually “drowned.” For someone to have it done on them and then claim it to be actual drowning is EXTREMELY disingenuous. The practice is designed to make a person BELIEVE that they actually ARE drowning. But has anyone ever ACTUALLY drowned by it? I have seen no reports that even make this claim. So, Hitchens “lasted” 12 and 19 seconds. This begs the question: 12 to 19 seconds before, what? Hitchens is still alive. So extrapolate this to a terrorist who knows vital information. Hmmm, could it be 12 to 19 seconds before they’ll cough up the information that saves thousands of innocent lives??? Apparently it was in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Alex: You really should do some research because much of what you claim is not sustainable upon a little investigation.
1) Your definition of torture does not conform to either national or international protocols. Ask yourself why the US prosecuted an American soldier in WW II for waterboarding as a war crime.
2) Your conclusions that if we’re using similar or identical techniques on American service personnel it mustn’t be torture is not consistent with what the US military itself says about its methods and reasons for having US soldiers experience for a tiny bit what torture is. The SERE program is designed to expose them to torture, not torture-lite.
3) By the US government’s own admission between 70-90% of the detainees at GITMO are innocent. How do your claims that torturing, what you call “a little water in the face,” is necessary and appropriate square with innocents being tortured?
4) You would do well to spend five minutes looking at the pictures from Abu Ghraib – do a google search “Abu Ghraib” and look at the pictures and ask yourself if this isn’t torture?
Watch a film such as Taxi to the Dark Side.
5) Waterboarding isn’t a “little water to the face.” It’s deliberate drowning. If you keep on calling it that you not talking about reality. I would recommend, since you are very aggressively asserting the truth of what you claim, that you put your money where your mouth is and do what Christopher Hitchens had the guts to do. Have someone who knows what they’re doing waterboard you. See what it feels like. See how many seconds you can last. Hitchens lasted 12 seconds and then in shame tried it again and lasted 19 seconds the second time. He declared unequivocally that it isn’t simulated drowning. It IS drowning.
Thanks for responding Jim. I remember a few years ago getting into a pretty good debate with my government teacher about torture. (He was for it) If I had more facts like you, I really could have shut him down.
A former interrogator in Iraq has a book about how counterproductive torture is. Check it out.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Break-Terrorist-Interrogators-Brutality/dp/1416573151
Ok, Eric, first of all, I didn’t break out the name calling until I was called a “sheep” for advocating the protection of innocent lives over terrorists’ comfort levels. And yet again, the key there is not American lives vs. other nations, it’s innocent lives versus terrorists’ comfort. That’s not chauvenistic, nor is acknowledging that since a world government (a government of humanity, so to speak) will not work in ANYBODY’S bests interests, given all the conflicts in interests inherent in such an arrangement–most other nations will not be thinking about humanity either–this advice only works when everyone follows it, each individual nation’s leaders have EVERY RIGHT to protect their own citizens first and foremost, be it the U.S. or any other nation. My recognition of this does not make me, or anyone else who recognizes it a “sheep”, and the moment my adversary in this conversation lays off the name-calling, I will as well.
No I don’t know which “revolutionary struggles” you’re referring to, but a classic example of the sickening eqivoaction you people engage in is equating waterboarding–whether or not this is truly “torture” to the REAL torture methods used by these other regimes, such as fingernail ripping, tongue cutting, eye gouging, and body-part dismemberment. Disagree with waterboarding, fine, but if you do not acknowledge the difference between this and the others, you are not worth anyone’s time and deserve nothing but ridicule. Now another thing, I don’t know of a single nation that wasn’t founded as an empire of some sort, and slavery is by no means unique to the U.S. I’m not saying it was right, but you act like we’re some kind of unique evil here. As far as the atomic bomb goes, the natural alternative at the time was a ground invasion which would have killed FAR more people. Haditha is currently being investigated and prosecuted, so I’ll give you the same challenge as before, come back to me with those arguments when our enemies start prosecuting THEIR own when our civilians are massacred. THEN you will have a case, not a moment before.
Whoa. These comments are completely out of hand. This site is a place for discuss and struggle over the burning political questions of this this society, NOT to engage in petty personal attacks and name calling. If people continue to engage in that kind of behavior they will be banned from posting on this forum. People with views such as Alex’s should be dealt with on the level of political line. This is a political struggle, not a struggle of personal egos. People like Alex have no standards whatsoever, and it comes through in the American chauvinism, petty personal attacks, etc. We should not stoop to that lever.
And further, I just want to pose that people, including people who generally align themselves with the World Can’t Wait, need to seriously raise their standards, and not fall into the framework of “is America as bad as Chinese communism?” The World Can’t Wait is very important resistance movement that includes all kinds of people, from people defending the US constitution to revolutionary communists, and ALL of us should have the standards and largeness of mind to reject the disgusting anti-communist “verdicts” that have been handed down on the people by Bush and the rest. We should have a lot of debate in this movement about whether communism is really a solution to all of this shit, but what we do NOT need is casting revolutonary struggles as worse than masses murderers like Bush and the crimes of this government.
Furthermore, people like Alex are American chauvinists and reactionaries, and we need to expose them as such. He we are, talking about an imperialist empire founded on slavery and genocide that dropped atomic bombs and cluster bombs on civilian populations, that has carried out massacre after massacre from My Lai in Vietnam to Haditha in Iraq… and all these fuckers know how to talk about is “American lives.” American lives are not worth more than the lives of other people, and we need to bring that out!
STOP THINKING LIKE AN AMERICAN AND START THINKING ABOUT HUMANITY!
You are most cowardly traitor I have ever seen. How dare you call people out for their own decisions regarding military service. Not everyone can do it, and I could not for many reasons, and I admire those who can, but NOT those who take an oath to protect their countrymen and then decide that a terrorist’s comfort level and right to not get water in his face is more important than thousands of the people he has taken an oath to protect!!! And it’s not just me and the administration who says waterboarding doesn’t even come CLOSE to the categoration of torture, you traitorous coward, it’s also most memebers of the intelligence gathering community who say what I say–the ones who actually have to deal with the consequences of people like you who give water in the face a label that belongs to fingernail ripping, eye gouging, tongue, cutting, and body-part-dismemberment. And I AM JEWISH, YOU COWARDLY, TRAITORUS SON OF A BITCH!!! HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST THAT I’M IN FAVOR OF MEIN KAMPF BECAUSE I FAVOR SAVING INNOCENT AMERICAN LIVES EVEN IF IT MEANS PUTTING WATER IN A TERRORIST’S FACE!!!!!! Once again, all over again you have lost ANY shred of credibility you might otherwise have had when you brought Hitler into this. You may have been on the battlefield, but you should have been there because you believe in protecting the people of this nation, not because you believe the constitution guarantees terrorists the right to unfettered comfort when innocent lives are at stake!!! You cowardly, traitorous son of a bitch, perverting Benjamin Franklin’s words about actual freedom to refer to terrorists’ right to comfort, or to conspire against American citizens without us having the means of finding out. It tells masses of volumes about you that you claim to defend the people of this nation, and yet it is people like you who will bring about its demise–you “fearlessness” will be the death of thousands of the very people you took an oath to protect. If desire that those people be protected makes ME the coward, then it is a label I wear proudly. ANd once again, you still haven’t answered my question. I am aware that there are “real” military opinions that as a rule “torture” doesn’t work, but these are generic, you cowardly traitor. You still have yet to DISPROVE the facts from CIA officials that we saved lives when we broke Khalid Sheikh Mohammed by waterboarding him. Disprove that to me with actual facts, not generic rules, coward!!!!!
To Mak1984, since in didn’t remember my source, I decided to google a source on the net. The first item was a newspaper article referencing U.S. Drug Control Officers and the UN Drug Control people on the Taliban and poppy production. Here is the link. Poppy seed production only went up after the CIA got there again.
http://www.opioids.com/afghanistan/index.html
Thank you for your intelligent question. However, as I noted, this was only the first link on google. Information now is far too easy to find with these search engines, so idiotic thoughts like the above sheep I have been attempting to educate on principles, ethics, liberty, and Justice have no excuse for not knowing the facts of anything. Thanks again, Jim
You must be the most cowardly sheep I’ve ever heard of. Mr. only knows people who have been in the military but is too scared to have actually been in it himself. Water-boarding IS torture. Only this draft-dodging administration says it isn’t. Oh, and you. Our oath is to the Constitution,for which we stand. Not to keep cowardly scum sheep like you feeling better about themselves. Sheep you are too afraid to go to the front lines. Sheep who would break first. Sheep who would never be trusted enough to be given secrets worth torture (which is all enhanced interrogation is regardless of how your weak moral backbone justify your little fears). I will give you another quote (para-quote because I am not blessed with a photographic memory, just a good one), this one from Ben Franklin. Those who trade freedom for safety have neither. This is exactly what you propose we do. You propose that we give up freedom for safety. The path you sheep propose to take us down is a coward’s path. One with no moral fiber. One completely lacking in intelligence about what you are talking about.
Perhaps you would be interested in REAL military opinions about how effective TORTURE is, though I doubt it. Water-boarding is torture, and was considered so before this administration pandered to the cowards such as yourself. It is still considered torture by every country in the world, excepting this administration which proposes.
Perhaps you would be interested in Sun Tzu’s Art of War? The Oxford Press has the best edition. Translated by Gen. Griffith, former Commandant of the USMC. Written approximately 2500 years ago. My guess is you are more in favor of Mein Kampf though. For it is exactly down that path you propose we travel. I do have to admit, it would give me great pleasure to see just how long it would take for some weak, spine-less sheep like yourself to sell out their own mother after being water-boarded, or some similar torure. You may have the distinction of being the most cowardly person I have ever encountered in my entire life. Most definitely an argument for post-natal abortion. You disgust me, and you dishonor every person who ever fought for freedom. There is absolutely no reason to live in the fear ridden world you choose to reside.
I have been where the bullets fly, and the bombs burst, as you have admitted you haven’t. It is obvious that you haven’t because you are a coward. I was there because I believed in the Constitution. You are still rallying for the coward’s path, and I still remain unafraid. That should tell you something. It tells me volumes about you, and every post you put up tells the entire world what a coward you are.
Fine, coward, go ahead and keep up this bullshit. This is pointless, but since you’ll just keep spewing your propaganda, I’ll keep at you too. I’ll say it yet again. ENHANCED INTERROGATION IS NOT A “SPIN WORD FOR TORTURE”–it referrs to interrogation where the person on whom it is done is no worse for the wear afterwards. Water in a terrorist’s face is in this category. (And by the way, even this has ONLY been used against people who we are WELL aware are against us, you coward, not ones who just “might” be–including, as I’ll remind you YET AGAIN–KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED, THE ONE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR 9/11 AND WHO WE DO INDEED HAVE–BIN LADEN WAS JUST A FIGUREHEAD. TORTURE would be dismembering bodyparts, ripping off fingernails, cutting off tongues, gouging out eyes, burns, cuts, etc.
Coward, there is no better definition of a traitor than one who will sentence the very people their oath requires them to protect to death so that a terrorist won’t be made uncomfortable–NOWHERE VIOLATING ANYTHING IN THE CONSTITUTION!!! I’LL SAY YET AGAIN THAT TERRORISTS’ COMFORT AND ABILITY TO PLOT AGAINST THE U.S. WITHOUT US HAVING THE TOOLS TO FIND OUT ABOUT IT ARE NOT CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS!!!! Are you, coward, familiar with a fellow named Abraham Lincoln?? He committed FAR worse “constitutional offenses” than this government EVER has, but he knew they were necessary, otherwise the country would be DESTROYED!!!!!! It’s the same thing here. I want you to provide DOCUMENTED PROOF to me that the facts about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being broken by waterboarding are false. Not generic statements about “‘torture’ doesn’t work.” Nothwithstanding your lack of understanding of what is or is not torture, you coward, even if enhanced interrogations don’t work as a rule, but there are exceptions to every rule, and if it will save innocent American lives, it MUST be done. Anyone who denies this is a coward and a traitor of the worst order. You are a disgrace to our military, protecting terrorists’ comfort level over our innocent lives. This country stands for protecting its own citizens. Doing what needs to be done to do this is not acting out of “fear” it is acting out of necessity. If you’re willing to die to protect terrorists’ comfort levels, give up your life so that they won’t get some water in their faces, then you clearly don’t value your life very much. But some of do, and the oath you took obliges you to protect us, not sentence us to death for some twisted, brainwashed, traitorous, cowardly definition of “what this country stands for.” Most military men I know want to obtain the information we need in the gentlest, most humane way we possibly can, but they, unlike you, are not willing to sentence thousands of the citizens they take an oath to protect to death if they can’t get the needed information this way, you traitorous coward.
“They could have caught Bin Laden. He was recruited by the CIA to lure Russia into Afghanistan, an operation funded by growing poppy in the region. A crop eradicated by the Taliban. Once that eradication was done, we invaded.”
I thought the Taliban profited from the sale of poppy. Where can I read more about that Jim?
Very interesting stuff there. The rest was on some William Wallace stuff right there…
FREEDOM!!!
By the way sheep, call me what you will. I am not afraid of the bogeyman, or what sheep think of me. I am a man. You are a disgrace.Keep up with the Seig Heil, sheep. Let REAL men stand guard over your undeserved freedom.
Well, so all the military men who oppose torture, or “enhanced interrogation” as you prefer to call it. Which is a spin word for torture. are all cowards. All of us veterans, combat veterans, those serving now, who don’t believe in torture, you can call it what you want sheep, are all cowards because we believe in the Constitution. You are a traitor, sheep. We do not have the person responsible for 9/11. You are a retarded sheep if you follow the party line on that one. And by the party line, I mean the government’s line. It’s 1984 sheep, and apparently you believe that we must throw out thousands of years of military logic and reason, to defend “liberty, and justice for all.” Excepting those who “might” be against us. Glad that you have no respect for all of history. For all of the proud veterans who understand what war is. For all of our military leaders who oppose this measure. All for the sake of the CIA. More commonly known as the “Cocaine Import Agency”. Torture doesn’t work. Period. It is the last resort of tyrants. It is a slap in the face to all those brave men and women who sacrificed everything to make this country a shining light of freedom throughout the world. You are most definitely a cowardly sheep. A traitor to all of those men and women who died for this country. I am embarrassed to even think that someone as despicable and cowardly and idiotic about war as you obviously are, is inhabiting this nation. In the name of this “War on Terror”, all we have done is destroyed the remnants of the Constitution, for which I still stand. That is the real battle. I can tell which side of the line you stand upon. I am still bound by that oath, which I swore three times, and will die by that oath. You stand for tyranny and oppression. You have no idea about war. About anything you are talking about. You are now the symbol of treason in my mind. To be so afraid, and to be so brainwashed, that you have become an enemy of everything this country is supposed to stand for. Which is “Truth, Liberty, and Justice for All.” Where Freedom reigns, and the home of the brave. Not those who would throw away an entire heritage out of some expediency.
When the founding fathers wrote the Constitution, they were surrounded by an enemy force far more powerful than them. Outnumbered and out-gunned. And frankly, militarily out thought. This document was written in far more perilous times than today. Yet, they had the cajones to stand firm and write those words that you hold in such little regard. Sheep you are, and you will be fleeced by your master.
A free nation need not resort to the methods of tyrants. That is for cowards only.
Ok, first of all SHUT THE F**K UP WITH YOUR “SHEEP” BULLSHIT!!! If you don’t quit calling me that, I will call you what you are–a COWARD!! That’s right, a stinking COWARD!!! I NEVER thought I’d have to call a veteran by that name, and it pains me to do so, but there is no other term for a man, military or not, who is willing to sentence thousands of his own countrymen to death for fear of how we’ll be regarded if we put water in a terrorist’s face. I know many other military men who took that same oath to defend the constitution as you did, and they recognize that the constitution is not a suicide pact, and that implicit in that oath is the oath to protect the American citizens for whom they go into battle. And those lives are to be protected above all else. At a certain point, fearlessness crosses the line into foolishness, and your lack of “fear” of the terrorists has long ago crossed that line, because you are willing to sentence your own countrymen to death for it. And frankly, I don’t fear the terrorists right now either, because I know that currently we have measures in place to stop them in their tracks. But if people like you get your way, we won’t for much longer. Another thing, I follow no party line of anyone, I am endoctrinated by NO ONE, nor do I advocate REAL torture. I do advocate enhanced interrogation where the terrorist is no worse for the wear after the fact, apparently that distinction continues to go in one side of your hollow skull and out the other. And the professional soldiers may not advocate some of this, but those actually charged with getting the intelligence necessary to stop these sick plots most certainly do and acknowledge that they are at times necessary. We had general information about 9/11, but because of people like you and your definition of what constitutes freedom, we were unable to get information specific enough to be able to do anything about it. And no, it wasn’t bin Laden directly, he was just the godfather, so to speak. The mastermind was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the one you’re passionately defending from the “torture” of getting some water in his face to save thousands of American lives. Many of these facts are contained in the (bi-partisan) 9/11 Commission report, not a figment of mine or anybody else’s imagination. Nothing in the constitution is absolute–there are limits to every freedom when it begins to infringe on the freedom of others, and Benjamin Franklin would be spinning like a ship’s propeller in his grave if he knew that you people have turned his defense of real freedoms into defenses of freedom from any discomfort for terrorists when American lives are at stake or freedom to plot to slaughter thousands of Americans without the government being able to find out about it in time to save those lives. YOU are the dishonorer, and the next terror attack that we could have prevented will be squarely on your head of your side gets its way.
By the way sheep, why do the military leaders state they do not condone torture, or as you call it “enhanced interrogation” and only you and the party line say they do? Could it be because it is an insult to professional soldiers who serve the Constitution of the United States of America? Why yes, it is. Tell me sheep, why don’t they? They could have caught Bin Laden. He was recruited by the CIA to lure Russia into Afghanistan, an operation funded by growing poppy in the region. A crop eradicated by the Taliban. Once that eradication was done, we invaded. Tell me sheep, I would really like to hear your double-think answer. I am not afraid of terrorists. I am a free man. All they can do is take my life. Something that will be lost anyway because of birth. But they will not take my freedom away. And I most certainly will not give it away as you suggest. If standing up for freedom is treason, then I am a traitor. It is a sad day when standing up to the ideals of the Constitution constitute treason in America. You sheep, are a traitor to everything the founding fathers stood for when they risked everything for something as beautiful as you suggest we throw away for “safety’s sake.” As Ben Franklin once said (roughly) Those who trade freedom for safety have neither. You have neither. I have both, for I will not trade my freedom for safety. I have fought for this right, and I do not mind dying for it. Neither do many of our brave soldiers mind it either. We have for generations fought and bled for the rights of others. Scum like you dishonor their memory and sacrifice, as you dishonor the sacrifice of those today. Shame on you sheep.
Wow, quote straight from the party line of those advocating torture. By the way, if you think publicly stated goals are the same as real goals, then you are as naive and uniformed as you are a sheep. Personally, it WAS our foreign policy that created 9/11. If it were terrorists, it wasn’t Bin Laden. He didn’t have the resources to pull it off. Our national defense is too good to let him through. Amazing how the same administratin that is advocating torture is the same one that said we could not have predicted 9/11. In fact, we were training for just that scenario when the event transpired. Just as the british government was on 7/7. Would make a man wonder who the real terrorist was, if he wasn’t a blind sheep. Since then, we’ve lost whatever liberties the ruinous War on Drugs, or the War on Us policy has eroded. You are obviously so Orwellian indoctrinated that the concept of independent thought is beyond you. Wake up bud. The Constitution, which I took three oaths to defend, has been wiped out by our own government. And you have helped by blindly following the party line without question.By giving in to fears of our own making. By standing up for creating dictatorships abroad in the name of freedom. You are a terrorist by being a sheep.
If the worst the Nazis, the Stalinists, the Chinese communists, etc. had done was waterboard people who they knew had information that would save lives, they would not have gone down in history as the evil that they are. Thus, you have just lost any last strand of credibility you might have had when you used the U.S. and the Nazi’s in the same comment. When you do that, you surrender your right to have ANYTHING else you say taken seriously. Funny thing about 9/11, it happened BEFORE any of the “torture” or “nation building” that you condemn here ever happened. And the only issue with “foreign policy” that I’ve ever heard the terrorists complain about is our acknowledging the right to exist of Israel, the one democracy in the Middle East–a piece of foreign policy we have NO reason to apologize for. These other sources of innocent deaths are not ignored–rather they are attacked with every weapon we as a society have to throw at them. And so it must be with terrorism. Acknowledging these facts is not “fear”–it is recognition of reality. The terrorists’ intentions are not claimed by our government, they are laid it in writings straight from the terrorists’ own sick minds. And ok, now that you have answered that yes indeed, you would have chosen thousands of dead Americans over a little water in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s face, I will answer your question. I would rather be a man with respect for human life, and I have enough respect for human life that I will not shed a single tear over a terrorist getting water in his face to save thousands of innocent lives. THAT, sir, is RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE!!!!
I did answer that. YES. I have been through the fires of hell already that you mention. Our foreign policies create these scenarios you describe. The torture and our “nation building” and our arrogance have created the scenarios you describe. Be a real man and quit being a sheep. By the way, not all drunk driving deaths are from drinkers. Also, let’s look into other deaths: Cancer, heart disease, birth, drug war (just casualties inflicted upon the innocent), etc. The fear mongering politicians only use the terrorist argument because they want the sheep to vote in a police state. Apparantly, you sheep are ignorant enough to fall for it. Be a man, live free and unafraid. The government that condones torture is a terrorist state. Like the Nazis, the Stalinists, the chinese Communists, all despots resort to torture as a means to keeping their OWN people in line. That’s what this is about sheepman. A vote for torture is a vote for the death of freedom. Now answer this question for me. Would you rather be a man with ethics and respect for human life? Or would you rather be a coward who lives in fear and in the terror of his own making? Your reaction is so fear-based and reactionary that it makes me wonder at the genius of George Orwell. He knew well the value of propaganda, as did our government when they hired the same propagandist that the nazis used. Oh, torture and propaganda being related to the US government and the Nazis all in one comment. And you are a victim of both, when you promote either.
I am not scared, just realistic, and nor am I a sheep. The difference between the other sources of death you mention and those by terrorism is that all those others you mention are people’s own destructive choices doing them in. Terror victims had no way of protecting themselves, unlike those you cite who could have changed their decisions. The very reason the number of terror deaths is as low as you say is the fact that we have measures in place to find out what these sick maniacs are up to and to stop them in their tracks. The terrorist is the person or agency that deliberately targets civilians with their attacks, not a government that does whatever is necessary to stop this. And of course, you failed to answer my question. So I’ll ask again, WOULD YOU HAVE RATHER A FEW THOUSAND MORE AMERICANS HAD DIED BECAUSE WE WOULDN’T PUT SOME WATER IN KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED’S FACE???? ANSWER MY QUESTION!!!!!
You are nothing but a scared little sheep. Count up ALL of the deaths possibly attributed to terrorism, and you won’t even get close to the number of people killed by any one of the following: drunk driving, drinking, smoking, eating poorly, overdosing from prescribed prescription medicines, and the list goes on. Be afraid you little sheep, for the terrorist is the government that sponsors torture. Be it called “enhanced interrogation” or some other name. It still stinks the same. Grow up and live free. That would mean living without the fear you so obviously wallow in. I am ashamed to know that so many Americans today are such cowards as you that you are too afraid to know that freedom dies when we practice police state tactics on others. which we do at every opportunity.
And I am ashamed of anyone who would sacrafice the lives of thousands of Americans because we won’t put a little water in a terrorist’s face. If we can get the infomation we nered out of them by “humane treatment”–whatever the hell that means–then by all means we should. But if that doesn’t work, the back up plan cannot be letting thousands of Americans die so our terrorist stays comfortable. How many times will it take for you to register the fact that we saved lives by waterborading Khlaid Sheikh Mohammed? We weren’t getting information out of him any other way. So answer me yes or no. Would you rather have had 5,000 more dead Americans? If you don’t have an answer to this question, then don’t bother responding. And we aren’t “torturing” anyone. I ask you again to read the distinction outlined above.
Have you ever heard of SERE school? That’s where they do that stuff now. The humane treatment of enemy combatants has been know to be the most successful strategy for over 2500 years. I suppose you believe we should disregard what all our military leaders want, and also just trash the Constitution (like Bush)in order to protect it. Get real, they aren’t even torturing real terrorists, but people turned in by our terroristic allies. And don’t think it won’t happen here either. Read the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which throws Americans into the enemy camp just for voicing their opinion. As a 10 year veteran, I am ashamed that our country engages in such actions. And I am ashamed for your ignorance in such matters as well.
Did you even bother to read the distinction outlined above? If we will do it to our own soldiers in training and the terrorist is no worse for the wear after the fact, IT’S NOT TORTURE!!!! And the worst we’ve done is waterboarding, which falls into both of these categories.
Torture has never been viewed as an acceptable means of acquiring information. On top of that, it undermines the very foundations of what this country is supposed to stand for. Personally, I believe anyone engaging in torture should be tried for treason. Also, the CIA has been tied to so many atrocities that it should be disbanded completely. From drug smuggling to gun running, our CIA is always at the fore-front of defaming the founding fathers intent.
They didn’t do enough because their heads were up their asses and they didn’t believe an act like this would ever actually be successfully pulled off-not unlike what people like you might say about the numerous plots were have foiled since then, sometimes on tips that we might have needed to make a few terrorists a little uncomfortable in order to obtain, and yes, maybe even give them a little water in their faces. I recently came across a nice distinction that tells you all you need to know about this. Torture vs. Enhanced interrogation. “If the terrorist is no worse for the wear after the fact, it wasn’t torture. (By the way, our military people get waterboarded as part of their training–another good test. I don’t think they get their fingernails ripped off or their tongues cut out. So another criteria might be that if we’ll do it to our own soldiers as part of their training, it’s probably not torture.) And every terrorist has a different breaking point. Some of them we might be able to get information from them with methods far short of any of this. But when innocent lives are at stake, we must not give up. ANd that’s the key here, we’re not putting a value on American lives vs. other countries (though we are acknowledging that every country’s own leader DOES have a primary responsibility to protect his/her own citizens first and foremost) but the bigger key is that innocent lives DO take precedent over terrorists’ comfort levels. And anyone who claims otherwise is more barbaric than those they are calling by these names for their use of enhanced interrogation against these monsters. (By the way, Zubaydah may not have provided useful information, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, sure as hell did. We thwarted a plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge that he led us to when we waterboarded him.)