Torture memos

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

We await this finding. If they just wrote opinions, how could one know whether it was deliberate? It seems to me that proof would require:

A) Word had to be passed from the WH on what conclusions they wanted. "We need you to create an opinion that permits the harshest levels of interrogation possible, although that may be unlawful. We will make sure you aren't held accountable."

or

B) Evidence that the DoJ attorneys had a different opinion before being asked. "Attorney X published an opinion ten years ago that stated unequivocally that waterboarding is torture."

Well, since we have prosecuted people in the past for waterboarding, that makes a pretty damn good argument that we think it's illegal. Otherwise, why would we have prosecuted them? OH RIGHT! Because it was OUR MEN who were being tortured. The double standard that people in this country have is sickening.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

they know they can get more reliable information by other methods.

Who is "they" and how do they "KNOW"?

Originally Posted by sugarpop

Well, since we have prosecuted people in the past for waterboarding,

Please cite a few cases of who "we" have prosecuted.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by classicman

Who is "they" and how do they "KNOW"?

I said: King Abdullah of Jordan said yesterday that they had actually been able to turn some members of al Qaeda and got them to work FOR them. They damn sure didn't get them to do that by torturing them.

They = Jordanians King Abdullah of Jordan said yesterday that they (Jordan) had actually been able to turn some members of al Qaeda and got them (al qaeda prisoners) to work FOR them (Jordan). They (Jordan) damn sure didn't get them (al qaeda prisoners) to do that by torturing them (al qaeda prisoners).

I guess they know because maybe the people they were able turn supplied them with information that was good? I don't know, he wasn't specific. Go watch Meet the Press from yesterday and see for yourself.

Is my language that hard to understand, or are you just giving me a hard time?

Please cite a few cases of who "we" have prosecuted.

Please don't tell me you didn't already know this...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...110201170.html
The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government -- whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community -- has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure." He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. "Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning," he replied, "just gasping between life and death."

Nielsen's experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

Of course they knew it was torture. They were warned by more than one source that it was. They just had to try and justify it because that's what Cheney wanted. I think it is all his doing.

12:33am responding to Merc

Originally Posted by classicman
IF waterboarding produced a positive outcome then this administration could be pressured to use it in the future if a key operative were captured. If they did not and something terrible happened, they would be blamed. Right or wrong, for political reasons (among others) this administration does NOT want a credible link.

12:35am responding to the above.

Originally Posted by sugarpop

No, they wouldn't, because they know they can get more reliable information by other methods. Torture is proven to be unreliable. By the gods! I can't believe some of you actually believe torture is OK.

This was not posted till 2:09PM this afternoon.

Originally Posted by sugarpop

King Abdullah of Jordan said yesterday that they had actually been able to turn some members of al Qaeda and got them to work FOR them. They damn sure didn't get them to do that by torturing them.

Originally Posted by sugarpop

Is my language that hard to understand, or are you just giving me a hard time?

Yes, no. (Is my answer hard to follow :p)

I'm just trying to follow you. You are all over the place again and your timeline doesn't add up. It would appear that you were referring to the posts you quoted and now you are saying otherwise... hence the confusion.
I think I got ya now, moving along.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by classicman

Yes, no. (Is my answer hard to follow :p)

Hell yes! :p

I'm just trying to follow you. You are all over the place again and your timeline doesn't add up. It would appear that you were referring to the posts you quoted and now you are saying otherwise... hence the confusion.
I think I got ya now, moving along.

Sorry for the confusion. I don't see how my timeline doesn't add up though. Oh well. *sigh*

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

I said: King Abdullah of Jordan said yesterday that they had actually been able to turn some members of al Qaeda and got them to work FOR them. They damn sure didn't get them to do that by torturing them.

You have absolutely no evidence to support that claim. Absolutely nothing.

[tw]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

You have absolutely no evidence to support that claim. Absolutely nothing.

But that is always sufficient proof to extremists. It proved global warming does not exist. It proved that "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter". It proved that stem cell research only kills people. It proved we did not have secret prisons. It proved we were not torturing. Then it proved we were torturing because only torture could extract intelligence. It also proved that Saddam and bin Laden conspired to create 11 September. It even proved that Saddam had WMDs. Why do you always forget that last sentence?

Which standard are we using? One routinely found in Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, and Fox News reality? One that also justifies lying? Or one that is exists in science, logic, and history?

Why the double standard? Oh. One standard for proof routinely used lies - ie a court case in Dover PA or Terry Schiavo incident.

Reality, the only way to 'turn' someone means no torture. But then six years of torturing John McCain proves that torture works? They even tortured one 'terrorist' 183 times in one month and still could not get the *truth*? Reality: only when 24 (a TV show) becomes proof that torture works. And yes, the tone is fully appropriate because I am using the attitude used by those who advocate torture.

Those who first need facts before knowing have repeatedly defined torture as useless - including the FBI. Those with a long history of knowing only because that is the extremist political agenda are also advocating torture. Coincidence? So we should believe their denials? In the real world, one believes how Jordan and Indonesia turned terrorist - not how wacko extremist Americans say it must have happened.

That is the nature of extremism. First one knows. Later one learns why they should know. How curious. Exact same logic was used to keep torturing someone 183 times in one month until he said what he *knows*.

Maybe Jordan did not really turn those extremists. Does not matter. We know only extremists advocate torture. An only because they are told to believe it using emotion and even a TV show.

Let’s see. Hundreds of facts all show how torture does nothing productive. And yet the same extremists deny it without any proof and with what extremists also routinely do - lie. Simple benchmark. Some are more centrists. Others only believe what they are told to believe. Which ones did Hitler need to come to power? Not an insult. A damning question - also called a lesson from history.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by tw

Which ones did Hitler need to come to power? Not an insult. A damning question - also called a lesson from history.

Which ones did he already have? The conservatives, liberals or socialists?

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by classicman

Which ones did he already have? The conservatives, liberals or socialists?

The conservatives. They make the best nationalists, and he was busy scrapping with the communists at the time.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by tw

But that is always sufficient proof to extremists. It proved global warming does not exist.

Hey, tw, has or has not the Arctic ice cap largely expanded (like by about a fifth), not shrunk, in the past two years? That some are saying that somehow this is evidence that global warming marches on tells me the global climate models still have systemic limitations. I'm not putting much faith in these doomsday extrapolations, because I have experience with them. And those various doomsdays were supposed to be ten years ago. Or so.

Originally Posted by tw

It proved that "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter".

To whom? Certainly not to me, and tw thinks I'm the kind of wacko extremist who'd accept it. I can't name anyone of my acquaintance who did.

Originally Posted by tw

It also proved that Saddam and bin Laden conspired to create 11 September. It even proved that Saddam had WMDs.

Tw believes somebody else, somewhere in America, must believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. It's a stupid belief the Left has. He is secure in this belief because he's never tested it. Again, I can't name a single American who does think Saddam did it, which would seem to rather test the idea. What a silly idea tw has. And he can't let go of the silly. Well is the Left served.

WMD's? Yeah, it transpires that the assessment that Iraq had a viable WMD capability was an intelligence mistake -- one shared globally among every single intelligence service that concerned itself with Iraqi military strengths. It simply tells us that Iraq had everyone fooled. I think it was mainly for CYA in midlevel Iraqi officialdom. If your dictator tells you to create WMD, you don't tell him you're failing, or you really can't, unless you like getting executed in imaginative ways. So you get really determined about your CYA just to keep breathing. It also transpired that while Saddam didn't have viable WMD up and running, it was not for want of trying, nor for want of burying key apparatus where they hoped arms inspectors wouldn't look, like scientists' backyards. If ever Ba'ath Iraq got the chance, they'd hare right on after their own WMD.

So now, there's no Ba'athist Party left in Iraq.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Hey, tw, has or has not the Arctic ice cap largely expanded (like by about a fifth), not shrunk, in the past two years? That some are saying that somehow this is evidence that global warming marches on tells me the global climate models still have systemic limitations. I'm not putting much faith in these doomsday extrapolations, because I have experience with them. And those various doomsdays were supposed to be ten years ago. Or so.

According to the members of the Tara Expedition, the ice is now only 3 feet deep, and the water underneath the ice, and the air, has warmed more than they thought it would have. It took them less than a year to travel across what took 2 years to travel 100 years ago. (or something like that. I'm going from memory.) You can go watch the program yourself... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29840099/

Tw believes somebody else, somewhere in America, must believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. It's a stupid belief the Left has. He is secure in this belief because he's never tested it. Again, I can't name a single American who does think Saddam did it, which would seem to rather test the idea. What a silly idea tw has. And he can't let go of the silly. Well is the Left served.

HA! I actually know people who still claim that. It is not a figment of the imagination of the left.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

You have absolutely no evidence to support that claim. Absolutely nothing.

I am repeating what King Abdullah said in an interview on Sunday Merc, and I said as much. Take it up with him, 'K?