They do claim that several plots have been foiled. The administration's message is generally underreported these days as nobody believes them.

It's analogous to Clinton bombing Sudan and everyone assuming it was wag-the-dog. Nobody believed him. Nobody cared. No attention was paid. Being anti Al-Q was not on the public's radar then.

I have said all along that this administration's inability to communicate is part of its leadership failure. Heaven help us if it becomes important for us to hear what they say.

It's not 14 plots, but 14 prisoners that are claimed to have been broken for useful information. It could be 14 pieces of information surrounding one plot. We don't know. We don't get to know. And that's how it has to be.

"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

In UT's scenario of the guy with the bomb in Central Park, what if you've accidently arrested the wrong guy? What if you arrested the right guy, but he lies about where he put the bomb? What if he lies the second time around, too? I think an enormous pack of bomb sniffing dogs would be more efficient than torture. NYC and environs should have more than enough of such animals. They could be pretty quickly shipped in from DC and other nearby large cities.

Its just an exercise in situational ethics. Is it right to do a wrong for "some greater good"? The terrorists on those airplanes in the 9/11 attacks would certainly have said so.

Hypothetical situation: If some guy kidnaps your son or daughter and puts a bomb with a 1-hour timer on them, what will you do to find out where your son or daughter is? You have 60 minutes, GO.

Beg, cry, call the cops, call Kofi Annan? Just write off your kid because you don't want to be mean to the nice kidnapper man?

I don't care how high his pain tolerance is, he will either give me the information I need to save my son/daughter's life, or he will spend the last moments of his miserable existence wishing he had.

If you're not willing to do that, you don't deserve your kid's love and trust.

edit: this goes against my faith, and I know I'm morally wrong here....I am really torn.

You torture him to death, and then you find out he was the wrong guy.
Your kid gets killed anyway, and now you're a broken shell of a human, with no self-respect.

As soon as you make it a personal emotional situation like that, all reason goes out the window. It's kind of pointless for a discussion.

I would torture and probably kill the guy, but I would be wrong to do that.

It is a really tough issue. I'm not sure that what an individual does on a personal level should be applied to our society's/government's position in world politics. If you have the guy that *truly* *knows* how to stop a nukular explosion in Los Angeles, I don't have a problem with torturing him to save millions of lives. Torturing when there is speculation, and no "clear and present danger" is not the position a government should take. It smacks of how other governments justify their support of terrorism.

How do you really know if he really knows? It's the same quandary as with the Death Penalty.

And afterwards, that person should be charged with a crime and put their extenuating evidence before the court.

Wow. That is about as far from the truth as I have ever seen. No one has taken propaganda to this level. Every day, the message of the day is faxed to every Cabinet Secretary, every 'preferred' Republican congressman, Fox News, and hundreds of Rush Limbaugh’s. Why did so many believe Saddam was complicit in 11 September when no one fact said so. Why was Saddam such a threat to America when not one adjacent country - with spies in Iraq - saw zero threats. Why was I the so few when I so accurately denied Saddam's WMD? Because so many even in The Cellar believed the propaganda - just as Hitler defined it in Mien Kampf - just as Radio Moscow would push it on 1960s shortwave.

So many denied Clinton because the spin did not properly frame bin Laden. When it comes to propaganda, the Democrats are incompetents. Democrats, for example, do not have this 'message of the day' agenda. Democrats do not have Rush Limbaughs because Rush is provided a daily treasure of propaganda 'talking point' by the Republican party. Democrats have nothing equivalent.

It did not help that Clinton attacked a factory in Sudan only because labs confused Round Up with a biotoxin. It did not help that the attack on bin Laden in Afghanistan could have created a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India. It did not help that all countries in the region did not yet regard bin Laden as a danger. But again, this is just another reason why a smoking gun is so critically important.

At least Clinton tried - which is far more than we can say about George Jr. However with so much well organized propaganda from a George Jr White House, then still, most Americans do not ask, "When do we go after bin Laden?" Fact: we are doing nothing to get bin Laden. Even the bin Laden task force was disbanded a few months ago. And yet the Republican propaganda is so good and the Democratic propaganda so bad that we never ask, "When do we go after bin Laden?"

The fact that Americans are not asking this question every month only proves how easily Americans are manipulated by propaganda rather than by logic. I am not politically correct. I am blunt honest. Therefore when I ask that same question, some here take offense rather than hear a fact. So many desperately need and believe propaganda as to take offense to my question rather than grasp the patriotic nature of its fact.

George Jr so manipulates propaganda so effectively that we don't blame him for taking a campaign fund raiser to CA as a Category 5 hurricane was bearing down on a Category 3 rated city. We excuse George Jr for doing that fund raiser because his propaganda is so good.

Same propaganda that could get so many to only 'feel' Saddam had WMDs. UT - I grew up watching propaganda manufacturers even to sell soap and toothpaste. Many today still believe the lies about Listerine even generations later. It is the same reason why I so avidly saw through George Jr's lies about WMDs. The Republican party is one of the best promoters of propaganda America has ever seen.

Latest update to this story is reported on 8 Oct 2006:
S3930 - Detainee bill

Silly bunny, UT is a figurehead... Wolf is the real ruler here.;)

Thanks for the insight.