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Getbig Main Boards => General Topics => Topic started by: Mr. Intenseone on September 18, 2006, 02:16:23 PM
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http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/a_deadly_kindness_opedcolumnists_richard_miniter.htm
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Whackjob right wing zealot, is that Rush Limbaugh in your avatar?
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Whackjob right wing zealot, is that Rush Limbaugh in your avatar?
8)..
(http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e196/Intenseone/350x275.jpg)
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The problem is, that these prisoners are being held without trial dates or accusations.
There is one question we need to have an answer for:
Why not charge them and get them to a trial? Make it confidential or whatever, but just get it over with.
The list of how good these people have it, despite being held capture, reads like a list of bad excuses for not being able to come up with good enough charges.
Several of these prisoners have been held for a long while, and then later released. Prisoners who weren't charged with anything, or never saw any trial.
Without any reimbursements whatsoever.
Either they were guilty, and should be punished, or they are not guilty, and should be released. But they cannot just be held for years. Without decisions. And then, one day released, without explanations, or reimbursements.
YIP
Zack
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I thought I read someone post that you were Mexican.
Are you Mexican? Do you have any hispanic blood in your heritage?
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http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/a_deadly_kindness_opedcolumnists_richard_miniter.htm
oh no we don't let them sleep good golly..fuck that come to NY and when you see the hole in the ground that used to be the twin towers and you see all the faces and names of those who were killed for no good reason then complain about torture..
were not ripping off there nails and playing Russian roulette with them so fuck em..
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A guy gets held for 5 years. What useful intel could he give you after 5 years? Whatever Afghan bases or attack plans or allies, well, after 5 years of torture, he probably has said everything there is to say. And info becomes obsolete during war.
Problem for the white house is, there are a lot of world lawyers just salivating to defend these guys in a trial. Why? Cause they want to show there is little evidence against these guys, and they want to show the effects of 5 years of torture. Sure they're terrorists, cause that's what our govt tells us. That convneient classification of 'enemy combatant' means we never have to release them.
This puzzles me. We considered the Taliban a legit govt in 1998 when we used them to locate and fire missiles at OBL. They wanted him dead too. In spring 2001, we considered them legitimate as we tried to pay them for rights to an oil pipeline thru afghanistan.
However, when war started, we decided to reclassify them, as a "terror group" and not a legit govt. This way, we don't have to release their POWS, we don't have to provide proof of anything. We just kill them, and the geneva convention doesn't apply.
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A guy gets held for 5 years. What useful intel could he give you after 5 years? Whatever Afghan bases or attack plans or allies, well, after 5 years of torture, he probably has said everything there is to say. And info becomes obsolete during war.
But see the problem is/was we couldn't "extract" it properly. With the new bill, we can just get it without trying to wait it out. 8)
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I thought I read someone post that you were Mexican.
Are you Mexican? Do you have any hispanic blood in your heritage?
No, I'm not Mexican...far from it. But my housekeeper is :P!
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But see the problem is/was we couldn't "extract" it properly. With the new bill, we can just get it without trying to wait it out. 8)
Actually, we HAVE been employing torture techniques. It was the media catching wind of the CIA guys trying to purchase personal insurance - to cover their asses when it came out that they were told to introduce car batteries to some arab genitals - that Bush suddenly stepped fwd with the bill to legalize and argument to legitimize.
My own opinion is that torturing prisoners is a scary thing. not only will they slice our guys to shreds when they catch them, but the line will get blurry...
For instance, jose Padilla, the American captured in Chicago who has been held for 55 months without a lawyer because he is alleged to be a terrorist - this bill would allow for his torture. Why does that matter? Um, a US citizen, denied legal counsel, tortured indefinitely because of evidence which is sealed. Scary. Padilla could point his finger at anyone and say "it was Showstoppa's idea!" and guess what - Showstoppa coudl find himself being tortured, denied a lawyer, and basically locked up for life - with zero released evidence.
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No, I'm not Mexican...far from it. But my housekeeper is :P!
Your girlfriend is a Mexican?
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No, I'm not Mexican...far from it. But my housekeeper is :P!
No WAY!!! Why do you look Mexican???
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where can I find the videos of our troops beheading the terrorists? or the innocent Iraqi's/afghans? how about all the bodies of the tortured Iraqi's/afghans that our troops dump all over the battle zones? or how about the buses, restaurants, daycares, police stations that our troops are blowing up? wait a sec, we haven't been doing those things have we? it's the terrorists that are doing it and if they are tortured some when caught and it saves one life, so be it. thank God, they haven't been hitting us on our soil, every basher would be clamoring about Bush not doing anything. Damn I still can't understand how he has time to run the war on terror since he's been so busy blowing up levees, buildings, secret deals for his friends, and making sure all the people involved with the "conspiracies" quiet.
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Your girlfriend is a Mexican?
No, his mom is.
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8)..
(http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e196/Intenseone/350x275.jpg)
I like Limbaugh because El Rush Bo is the teacher of bushocracy everyday on the E I B network.
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where can I find the videos of our troops beheading the terrorists? or the innocent Iraqi's/afghans? how about all the bodies of the tortured Iraqi's/afghans that our troops dump all over the battle zones? or how about the buses, restaurants, daycares, police stations that our troops are blowing up? wait a sec, we haven't been doing those things have we? it's the terrorists that are doing it and if they are tortured some when caught and it saves one life, so be it. thank God, they haven't been hitting us on our soil, every basher would be clamoring about Bush not doing anything. Damn I still can't understand how he has time to run the war on terror since he's been so busy blowing up levees, buildings, secret deals for his friends, and making sure all the people involved with the "conspiracies" quiet.
See, you're letting your anger over the several wll-publicized Muslim extremist asshole cloud your judgment of the bigger picture.
You don't have facts. You have the spoonfed information, given to you in such a way to incite you to support what is an incredible thing - complete permission for our govt to use torture on any person it chooses, and to do so in secret. Wait, you didn't think those two separate routes - the patriot act and the torture bill - were unrelated, didja? ;)
You justify torture of other human beings. You said that another american (me) deserves a blanket party for pointing out the facts surrounding 911 which show, among other things, that 11 nations warned Bush and he ignored each one. Me, I am sharing information and debating points in order to help grow the common sense movement that 1) torture is never acceptable, and 2) 911 had some assistance from white guys in ties.
Now, should I be anally prodded with a plunger then sent to Gitmo? Jeez, man. I'm fighting to keep our freedoms intacts and to help the truth come out about a terror attack that killed 3000 of our fellow Americans. Are you? ;)
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Your girlfriend is a Mexican?
NO!
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No, his mom is.
Bite me......at least my mom is female :-X!!
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Monster respect for the Constitution.
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where can I find the videos of our troops beheading the terrorists? or the innocent Iraqi's/afghans? how about all the bodies of the tortured Iraqi's/afghans that our troops dump all over the battle zones? or how about the buses, restaurants, daycares, police stations that our troops are blowing up? wait a sec, we haven't been doing those things have we? it's the terrorists that are doing it and if they are tortured some when caught and it saves one life, so be it. thank God, they haven't been hitting us on our soil, every basher would be clamoring about Bush not doing anything. Damn I still can't understand how he has time to run the war on terror since he's been so busy blowing up levees, buildings, secret deals for his friends, and making sure all the people involved with the "conspiracies" quiet.
You won't find pictures of American troops beheading noncombatants, but you will find pictures of soldiers taking pictures of naked terrorists . . . and going to jail for it. I guess we showed them. Cut off the head of an innocent young man and we'll take a picture of you in your underwear.
And I agree about Bush. How does he carry out a massive plan to murder innocent civilians, steal oil, AND run the country? Amazing.
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You won't find pictures of American troops beheading noncombatants, but you will find pictures of soldiers taking pictures of naked terrorists . . . and going to jail for it. I guess we showed them. Cut off the head of an innocent young man and we'll take a picture of you in your underwear.
And I agree about Bush. How does he carry out a massive plan to murder innocent civilians, steal oil, AND run the country? Amazing.
I think you have a very simplistic view of how things work.
You're older. I'm surprised you're so close-minded about this. Are you not aware of the foreign influences in our govt? The dual citizenships that many in govt have with one particular country? Are you unaware of the history of the relationships between the US and that nation, in terms of financial, intel, drug, weapons, political, and other ties?
Come on man - if you're over 25, you have no reason to be ignorant of these events. you've lived through them.
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I think you have a very simplistic view of how things work.
You're older. I'm surprised you're so close-minded about this. Are you not aware of the foreign influences in our govt? The dual citizenships that many in govt have with one particular country? Are you unaware of the history of the relationships between the US and that nation, in terms of financial, intel, drug, weapons, political, and other ties?
Come on man - if you're over 25, you have no reason to be ignorant of these events. you've lived through them.
I have a simplistic view, because I'm simple minded and believe that generally the simplest and most logical explanation is usually the right one.
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I have a simplistic view, because I'm simple minded and believe that generally the simplest and most logical explanation is usually the right one.
Don't the myriad of anomalies and statistical improbabilities that took place on 911 - all in the favor of the bad guys - bug you a bit, then?
NORAD sabotaged itself that day. It's as simple as that.
The US Govt didn't want an investigation. UNline anything else in US history. nothing simple there.
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i say just put micro chip well into their organs...Where ever they go, you know where they are at...And if someone finds the chip inside them, they will probably kill them anyway...
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Now, should I be anally prodded with a plunger then sent to Gitmo? Jeez, man. I'm fighting to keep our freedoms intacts and to help the truth come out about a terror attack that killed 3000 of our fellow Americans. Are you? ;)
When you go down that road, ...you end up with situations like this...
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_3655.aspx (http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_3655.aspx)
I wonder how much this is going to cost the Canadian tax payer in restitution?
How can you adequately compensate an innocent man who had to undergo this?
It reminds me of the Salem witch trials. They torture you long enough, ...eventually you're going to confess to being a witch, ...and if you don't confess, ...you MUST be a witch in order to be able to withstand all that torture. :-\
shoot... if that were me, ...I'd be confessing to kidnapping the frikking Lindbergh baby
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Bite me......at least my mom is female :-X!!
I thought you were Mexican... So half Mexican... Dude it's no big deal, there's nothing wrong with that!
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Don't the myriad of anomalies and statistical improbabilities that took place on 911 - all in the favor of the bad guys - bug you a bit, then?
No.
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I thought you were Mexican... So half Mexican... Dude it's no big deal, there's nothing wrong with that!
I'm Italian.....not even "half" Mexican
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No.
If your child had been on a field trip to the Towers, and had plummeted 100 stories to her death, from a smoke filled building to the concrete below...
would you still be so nonchalent about who was responsible?
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I'm Italian.....not even "half" Mexican
I could have sworn someone posted that you were Mexican.
Are you short and dark skinned?
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If your child had been on a field trip to the Towers, and had plummeted 100 stories to her death, from a smoke filled building to the concrete below...
would you still be so nonchalent about who was responsible?
My child was not in the Towers and I know who was responsible.
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My child was not in the Towers and I know who was responsible.
you know this because CNN was showing big pictures of bin laden, 20 minutes after the 2nd plane hit?
you know this because of an underfunded, non-independent investigation, begrudgingly done after 441 days of delays?
And it's kinda selfish to say that you're not interested in the guilty parties, because YOUR kid wasn't in the tower. i suppose you'd be okay with nukes hitting ten US cities, as long as your city isn't one of them, right?
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I'm Italian.....not even "half" Mexican
Wow, that just goes to show us all... You never can tell. I would have never thought an Italian would come out looking Mexican but then there are Italians with blonde hair and blue eyes too :)
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but then there are Italians with blonde hair and blue eyes too :)
I'm one of them.
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I'm one of them.
Blond Blue eyed Italian? I knew a few back in the 80's and they thought it was strange I thought it was strange they were Italian.
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Blond Blue eyed Italian?
is
Northern Italy!
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is
Northern Italy!
True! but I didn't know that when I was an over sexed pot smoking hellraiser ;D Ok... not really, I didn't inhale ;D
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CIA veterans speak out against torture
By Jason Vest
jvest@govexec.com
Among the fundamental conceits of the architects of the Bush administration's war on terrorism is that heavy-handed interrogation is useful, even necessary, to get any information that will protect the American people, and that such interrogation techniques are devoid of negative consequences in dealing with real or suspected terrorists.
One way this notion has played out in practice is the CIA's use of "extraordinary rendition," in which terror suspects overseas are kidnapped and delivered to third-party countries for interrogation -- which, not uncharacteristically, includes some measure of torture, and sometimes fatal torture.
Details about the extent and excesses of the U.S. government's interrogation practices have been ably documented by the media and human-rights organizations. Many thought that extraordinary rendition would be the worst of the revelations, but on November 2, The Washington Post revealed that the CIA has been running its own system of secret overseas detention and interrogation centers, known as "black sites."
Coming at a moment when both CIA Director Porter Goss and Vice President Cheney have been crusading to exempt the CIA from pending legislation authored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would ban U.S. government personnel from using torture, and other abusive conduct, in interrogations, the story has been particularly resonant -- especially when at least one prisoner under CIA supervision at the now-defunct Afghanistan "salt pit" black site died as a result of abuse.
Although outrage has focused on the existence and symbolism of the black sites, comparatively little attention has been paid to the concerns -- if not outright objections -- of many distinguished CIA veterans about these sites and the use of torture in general. It's not just that such behavior is largely impractical, they say; it's that even by the morally ambiguous standards of espionage and covert action, the abuse is simply wrong.
Some perennially high-profile retired CIA officers like Bob Baer, Frank Anderson, and Vincent Cannistraro recently spoke out to Knight Ridder about their opposition to torture on practical grounds (Cannistraro said that detainees will "say virtually anything to end their torment"). But over the past 18 months, several lesser-known former officers have been trying, publicly and privately, to convince both the agency and the public that torture and other unduly coercive questioning tactics are morally wrong as well.
Speaking at a College of William and Mary forum last year, for example, Burton L. Gerber, a decorated Moscow station chief who retired in 1995 after 39 years with the CIA, surprised some in the audience when he said he opposes torture "because it corrupts the society that tolerates it."
This is a view, he confirmed in an interview with National Journal last week, that is rooted in Albert Camus's assertion in Preface to Algerian Reports that torture, "even when accepted in the interest of realism and efficacy," represents "a flouting of honor that serves no purpose but to degrade" a nation in its own eyes and the world's.
"The reason I believe that torture corrupts the torturers and society," Gerber says, "is that a standard is changed, and that new standard that's acceptable is less than what our nation should stand for. I think the standards in something like this are crucial to the identity of America as a free and just society."
The moral dimensions of torture, Gerber adds, are inextricably linked with the practical; aside from the fact that torture almost always fails to yield true or useful information, it has the potential to adversely affect CIA operations.
"Foreign nationals agree to spy for us for many different reasons; some do it out of an overwhelming admiration for America and what it stands for, and to those people, I think, America being associated with torture does affect their willingness to work with us," he says. "But one of my arguments with the agency about ethics, particularly in this case, is that it's not about case studies, but philosophy. Aristotle says the ends and means must be in concert; if the ends and means are not in concert, good ends will be corrupted by bad means."
A similar stance was articulated last year by Merle L. Pribbenow, a 27-year veteran of the agency's clandestine Directorate of Operations. Writing in Studies in Intelligence, the CIA's in-house journal, Pribbenow recalled that an old college friend had recently expressed his belief that "the terrorist threat to America was so grave that any methods, including torture, should be used to obtain the information we need." The friend was vexed that Pribbenow's former colleagues "had not been able to 'crack' these prisoners."
Pribbenow sought an answer by revisiting the arcane case of Nguyen Van Tai, the highest-ranking Vietcong prisoner captured and interrogated by both South Vietnamese and American forces during the Vietnam War.
Re-examining in detail the techniques used by the South Vietnamese (protracted torture that included electric shocks; beatings; various forms of water torture; stress positions; food, water, and sleep deprivation) and by the Americans (rapport-building and no violence), Pribbenow reached a stark conclusion: "While the South Vietnamese use of torture did result (eventually) in Tai's admission of his true identity, it did not provide any other usable information," he wrote. In the end, he said, "it was the skillful questions and psychological ploys of the Americans, and not any physical infliction of pain, that produced the only useful (albeit limited) information that Tai ever provided."
But perhaps most noteworthy was Pribbenow's conclusion: "This brings me back to my college classmate's question. The answer I gave him -- one in which I firmly believe -- is that we, as Americans, must not let our methods betray our goals," he said. "There is nothing wrong with a little psychological intimidation, verbal threats, bright lights and tight handcuffs, and not giving a prisoner a soft drink and a Big Mac every time he asks for them.
There are limits, however, beyond which we cannot and should not go if we are to continue to call ourselves Americans. America is as much an ideal as a place, and physical torture of the kind used by the Vietnamese (North as well as South) has no place in it."
Retired since 1995, Pribbenow spends most of his time writing on Vietnam War history and translating Vietnamese works. With the exception of participating in a documentary series on the Vietnam War, he has never spoken to the press. But last week in an exclusive interview with National Journal, he revealed that part of what prompted him to write his piece was his own experience in Vietnam, where as an interpreter participating in CIA interrogations, he had occasion to interact with South Vietnamese torturers and their victims.
"If you talk to people who have been tortured, that gives you a pretty good idea not only as to what it does to them, but what it does to the people who do it," he said. "One of my main objections to torture is what it does to the guys who actually inflict the torture. It does bad things.
"I have talked to a bunch of people who had been tortured who, when they talked to me, would tell me things they had not told their torturers, and I would ask, 'Why didn't you tell that to the guys who were torturing you?' They said that their torturers got so involved that they didn't even bother to ask questions."
Ultimately, he said -- echoing Gerber's comments -- "torture becomes an end unto itself."
Pribbenow also said he was moved to write down his thoughts out of concern for the current generation of intelligence officers. "I don't personally know of any cases where an agency officer ever [tortured] anyone; that was always taboo, something we just didn't do," he said.
"But I had been seeing stuff in the news, on TV, TV commentators, that sort of thing, in favor of torture," he said, "and I thought, 'I know there are a lot of new intelligence officers, new guys who don't have a lot of experience,' and thought maybe something like this will help them make their own decisions as to how to handle themselves in these situations, especially when people in authority are saying things that are unclear."
Indeed, Pribbenow, Gerber, and other veterans interviewed all noted that one of their greatest worries is that the proposed exemption to McCain's legislation will institutionalize something that has historically been an exception in CIA culture: CIA officers actually doing physical harm to interrogation suspects.
One longtime case officer asks, "Are there instances throughout history when we have known, and in some cases, at least, turned a blind eye to, that allied or friendly intelligence services are torturing people? Yes," he says. "Is it something our own officers have done? Almost never."
What has many veterans worried, he said, is the fact that while case officers aren't actually trained in interrogation techniques ("I'm not sure I ever knew anyone who was a 'professional interrogator' in the agency," says Pribbenow), in recent years officers have been getting the worst combination of no training plus ambiguous signals from management on the ethics of interrogation.
From 1972 to 1975, Frank Snepp was the CIA's top interrogator in Saigon, where he choreographed elaborate, protracted sessions with Nguyen Van Tai and, at one point, seven other senior Vietcong captives. To the question of whether torture or abusive behavior by interrogators is justified, Snepp's answer is unequivocally no. And the fact that this point isn't understood at the agency today, Snepp says, is a sign of serious problems.
"One of the big lessons for the agency was that the South Vietnamese torturing people got in the way of getting information," he says. "One day, without my knowledge, the South Vietnamese forces beat one of my subjects to a pulp, and when he staggered into the interrogation room, I was furious. And I went to the station chief and he said, 'What do you want me to do about it?'
"I told him to tell the Vietnamese to lay off, and he said, 'What do you want me to tell them in terms of why?' I said, 'Because it's wrong, it's just wrong.' He laughed and said, 'Look, we've got 180,000 North Vietnamese troops within a half hour of here -- I can't tell them, don't beat the enemy. Give me a pragmatic reason.' I said, 'He can't talk. He's a wreck. I can't interrogate him.' He said, 'That, I can use with them.'
"The important lesson for me was that moral arguments don't work," Snepp says. "But if you have pragmatic reasons, that will work. But the most important thing is that the only time you can be sure that what you're getting from someone is valid is through discourse. In Tai's case, the idea was to develop absolute trust, which you do not do by alienating and humiliating someone. He liked poetry; I brought him books of poetry, and in many sessions we sat and discussed poetry, nothing else.
The most extreme thing I did was a disorientation technique, where I would keep jumping from one subject to another so rapidly that he might not remember what he'd told me the day before, or not remember that he had not, in fact, told me what I was saying he'd told me. Little by little, I drew him into revelations. And I was highly commended for this work."
But today, according to case officers, younger CIA operatives have no formal training. No qualified old hands are around to informally mentor them, or to even swap collegial notes, on the practical or the ethical in interrogations.
"We're not trained interrogators -- to be honest, in those situations I really had no idea what I'm doing, and I'm not the only one who has had this experience," says a decorated active case officer with nearly 25 years of experience, who on several occasions in recent years has participated in interrogations of Islamist radicals conducted by foreign intelligence services.
"The larger problem here, I think, is that this kind of stuff just makes people feel better, even if it doesn't work.... I'm worried that this is becoming more institutionalized," the officer says. "There are other officers I know who I think are coming to take on faith that the only way to get anything out of a suspected terrorist is beating it out of him, because he's in an entirely different category, so fanatical that it's the only thing that'll work."
According to a 30-year CIA veteran currently working for the agency on contract, there is, in fact, some precedent showing that the "gloves-off" approach works -- but it was hotly debated at the time by those who knew about it, and shouldn't be emulated today.
"I have been privy to some of what's going on now, but when I saw the Post story, I said to myself, 'The agency deserves every bad thing that's going to happen to it if it is doing this again,'" he said. "In the early 1980s, we did something like this in Lebanon -- technically, the facilities were run by our Christian Maronite allies, but they were really ours, and we had personnel doing the interrogations," he said.
"I don't know how much violence was used -- it was really more putting people in underground rooms with a bare bulb for a long time, and for a certain kind of privileged person not used to that, that and some slapping around can be effective.
"But here's the important thing: When orders were given for that operation to stand down, some of the people involved wouldn't. Disciplinary action was taken, but it brought us back to an argument in the agency that's never been settled, one that crops up and goes away -- do you fight the enemy in the gutter, the same way, or maintain some kind of moral high ground?
"I think as late as a decade ago, there were enough of us around who had enough experience to constitute the majority view, which was that this was simply not the way we did business, and for good reasons of practicality or morality. It's not just about what it does or doesn't do, but about who, and where, we as a country want to be."
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Chickenhawk Sean Hannity Condemns Veterans Against Torture
Reported by Ellen - September 16, 2006 - 349 comments
Sean Hannity, who declined to serve in the military when he had the chance, condemned General Colin Powell and Republican Senators Graham, McCain and Warner, all of whom did serve, for taking a stand on behalf of the legal rights of prisoners and maintaining the Geneva Conventions’ standards for humane treatment.
Hannity was peeved, of course, that a group of Republicans, which also included Senator Susan Collins, had rebelled against President Bush and prepared legislation with stronger legal protections for prisoners. Ignoring the fact that Senator Graham and others believe that maintaining the Geneva Conventions protects our troops and our country, Hannity said, “I find it unconscionable that we’re gonna tie the hands of interrogators.”
The shrill and shrewish Republican Karen Hanretty, another non-server, claimed to know why McCain – a former victim of torture, himself – was against torture and that it was not out of conscience or concern for our troops. “Part of this is ego, part of this is positioning.”
Apparently, there’s nobody Bush loyalists won’t attack from the safety of a TV studio.
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http://www.veteransagainsttorture.com/
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Religion against torture: http://www.nrcat.org/
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Bush against torture:
"We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being."--G.W BUSH
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The real truth behind the recent move of high level prisoners to gitmo:
CIA ‘refused to operate’ secret jails
Finanical Times (UK)
The Bush administration had to empty its secret prisons and transfer terror suspects to the military-run detention centre at Guantánamo this month in part because CIA interrogators had refused to carry out further interrogations and run the secret facilities, according to former CIA officials and people close to the programme.
The former officials said the CIA interrogators’ refusal was a factor in forcing the Bush administration to act earlier than it might have wished.
The administration publicly explained its decision in light of the legal uncertainty surrounding permissible interrogation techniques following the June Supreme Court ruling that all terrorist suspects in detention were entitled to protection under Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions.
But the former CIA officials said Mr Bush’s hand was forced because interrogators had refused to continue their work until the legal situation was clarified because they were concerned they could be prosecuted for using illegal techniques. One intelligence source also said the CIA had refused to keep the secret prisons going.
In an interview with the Financial Times, John Bellinger, legal adviser to the state department, went further, saying there had been “very little operational activity” on CIA interrogations since the passage last December of a bill proposed by Senator John McCain outlawing torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners.
Gee, that puts a completely different slant on things. Pretty sad when the CIA is more ethical than you are.
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"The allegations made by the Washington Post are extraordinarily serious. They have put the United States on notice that acts of torture may be taking place with U.S. participation or complicity. That creates a heightened duty to respond preventively. As an immediate step, we urge that you issue a presidential statement clarifying that it is contrary to U.S. policy to use or facilitate torture. The Post’s allegations should be investigated and the findings made public. Should there be evidence of U.S. civilian or military officials being directly involved or complicit in torture, or in the rendition of persons to places where they are likely to be tortured, you should take immediate steps to prevent the commission of such acts and to prosecute the individuals who have ordered, organized, condoned, or carried them out. The United States also has a duty to refrain from sending persons to other countries with a history of torture without explicit and verifiable guarantees that no torture or mistreatment will occur. " http://www.veteransforamerica.org/index.cfm/Page/Article/ID/234
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Did Hannity serve?
Had Hannity ever been waterboarded?
Hearing OReilly say that 'splahing a little water on the guys is no big deal' made him sound ignorant. Not left/right, not right/wrong, just ignorant. And I"m a big Billo fan.
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Did Hannity serve?
Had Hannity ever been waterboarded?
Hearing OReilly say that 'splahing a little water on the guys is no big deal' made him sound ignorant. Not left/right, not right/wrong, just ignorant. And I"m a big Billo fan.
I tell you what.
I'm not a fan of O'Reilly.
Why? Because I consider his show bad journalism, and a text book example of propaganda reel.
I think it's good to watch O'Reilly however, since many people are watching him and making his beliefs into theirs, but I always do so with a pause and rewind button at hand.
The pace in the show is fast, to avoid that the viewer questions the claims made.
And I hate when people talk about how journalists should "get tough" with politicians.
I want the journalists to sit down with politicians, and ask questions, then wait to listen for the answer. Actually listen to the answer.
This "debating" macho nonsense isn't getting any answers.
I seriously doubt that O'Reilly has been able to get one guest to reveal one single fact that wasn't previously known due to his confrontational way of "interviewing".
YIP
Zack
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OReilly could singlehandedly destroy the 911 Skeptics if he had a guest on and truly debated facts.
Instead, every time he touches the story, it's "These nuts just can't face the facts - it's all right here in the 911 Report!" and they will bring on a guy from Pop Mechanics to just spend 4 minutes belittling the questions without answering them.
I'd love to see him be more 'balanced' - with equal time to both sides of the argument.
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OReilly could singlehandedly destroy the 911 Skeptics if he had a guest on and truly debated facts.
Instead, every time he touches the story, it's "These nuts just can't face the facts - it's all right here in the 911 Report!" and they will bring on a guy from Pop Mechanics to just spend 4 minutes belittling the questions without answering them.
I'd love to see him be more 'balanced' - with equal time to both sides of the argument.
You know, the debating is what I don't like.
Asking questions, make sure you're prepared. But cutting off people, arguing?
That won't get any answers.
O'Reilly is a Hot Head.
My ideal of a reporter is actually the TV show detective Columbo. He asks simple questions, and people don't feel intimidated by him. But he gets the answer, he gets the story, he gets the scoop.
YIP
Zack
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Did Hannity serve?
Had Hannity ever been waterboarded?
Hearing OReilly say that 'splahing a little water on the guys is no big deal' made him sound ignorant. Not left/right, not right/wrong, just ignorant. And I"m a big Billo fan.
yea, lets see if Billy has the same thing to say about the photos of the two guys plunged in boiling liquid and killed. Our guys didn't directly do it but it was done in the name of obtaining intel in the war on terror. Or crap like this: http://hammeroftruth.com/2004/06/12/dogs-authorized-at-abu-ghraib-additional-photos/