Think: If ur child was kidnapped and the kidnapper knew where ur child was what tactics would u want to use to save ur child after all else fails?  Would u be okay not using torture even if it meant your child could die?

That’s just, like, your opinion, Barry. What a phony issue. President Bush stopped the interrogation practice years ago, but Obama has to claim that he did.

Republicans can justify anything because they literally have no moral capacity.

Why stop at waterboarding?  Think of all the other inhumane tactics we can use to prove how humane we are.

There’s literally nothing President Obama could do to make you happy is there?

In most situations, torture is not necessary as there might be other ways to get results. 

I lean left but torture is useful in only EXCEPTIONAL circumstances. 

The only time that torture is acceptable has to be when ALL these conditions have to be met;

1) The victim must be directly involved in the crime as the criminal or the co-cosnpirator (not always easy to prove at times)
2) All other forms of persuasion must have been exhausted (eg negotiations) and info extracted tested
3) There is useful information that needs to be extracted (info should save a life or lives)
4) The crime itself must be really bad (as bad as torture) 

And Democrats will allow terrorists to destroy America and kill Americans.  Try that in Korea (both North and South) Trevor.

Obama, Huntsman, and Paul all agree on this issue. Turns out they are all correct.

You’re a scared little child, incapable of thinking for yourself.

No, he actually won the senate seat by getting more votes than his opponent. 

hahahaha…typical hobbit you are…what a dumb senerio….our military cant use torture as a technique so your dumb ass comes here to advocate use of waterboarding as a crime fighting tool for local police depts…you should be waterboarded for being so gotdammed dumb….you goofball conservatives wont be satisfied until every one of you asswipes is in prison

lolololololol….i thought you were gonna claim Obama waterboarded his opponent….thats what we’re talking about right dumbass????….like a brilliant politician once said….YOURE TALKING ABOUT APPLES WHILE WERE TALKING ORANGES…..GET A LIFE MORON

But but but, the next question he was asked was also about the GOP debate and he said:

“I’m not going to comment on what they say until they have selected a candidate” (or something like that).

So Obama flipflopped…addressed something and then claimed he wouldn’t do just that.  So, imagine if Palin had said it and then imagine TC’s headline.

Funny stuff.  Will the media EVER ask Obama a hard question? Will they ALWAYS let him get away with pointing the finger of blame elsewhere? 

PS:  Obama is wrong.

So you believe that torture should be legal?

Hasn’t worked out that way, has it? All the significant victories in the War on Terror have been since President Obama took the oath of office. Explain that please.

What a terrible, flawed analytical model. I suppose you support crime victims being on the jury, as well? Hello, Nazi Germany!

Obama – what a buzz-kill.  We don’t even get to torture people (openly) anymore? 

What a jip!

If a reporter on the trip asks a real question, say ,about the latest scandal,Siga, he won’t be called on again.

Ms_miki: In that situation I would want the interrogator to make clear what the perps choices are: getting tried for kidnapping or murder.
The ticking time bom scenario doesn’t work. All the torture victim has to do is stall till time X. The torturer might not even know when X is. Every minute wasted with torture (And checking the info obtained by torture) brings the torture victim closer to his goal.

He can resign, confess and turn himself in to the authorities.

Wow. If this is your best defense of waterboarding, you’ve got zero. Less than zero.

The Obama Conspiracy Industrial Complex at work. 

No, not really, but don’t let the truth get in your way, Little Petty.

His Democratic opponent’s wife leaked the very, very messy divorce papers. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-502443_162-3655798-502443.html

His first Republican opponent was involved in a very messy divorce following a very messy marriage and a number of visits to sex clubs.

His second Republican opponent was the carpetbagging charlatan Alan Keyes who never got any traction after last minute move to Illinois.

Miss, are you insane, stupid or are you pretending to be an idiot ?

I’m guessing you  don’t have any college loans to be paid.

Your comments look like a ransom note from Satan’s daughter.

That was a thoughtful post, rudeboy. Are there circumstances where torture is justified to save lives? Perhaps, but only in extreme circumstances. Otherwise, by torturing, we become like our enemy.

Tiny-Tampon, you need to stop shoving your hand deep into that big bag o’ krap lest you encounter a krap-eating spider down there. 

Why is it that the media never asks this manchild a difficult question?  Why do they allow him to lie, cheat and steal?  Why do they never get embarrassed by their own ignorance?

Honestly, Obama said one thing, did another….he does that all the time and yet the media just bat their eyelashes, throw him verbal bjs, and never ever ask him a question of substance.

He has been caught in a quid pro quo and the media is SILENT on the abuse of OUR money. 

Makes me laugh how journolisters are still so working on concert with each other to protect this incompetent individual.  Blames others always for his own lack of leadership and the media say uh, uh, your highness.  Sickening.

The values that Republicans are willing to defend today would have been inconceivable thirty years ago. 

From Ronald Reagan’s signing statement ratifying the UN Convention on Torture from 1984:

“The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment.”

Reagan wasn’t just against what is clearly and unequivocally torture, but also methods dressed up as “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Once again, Obama sounds much more like Reagan than most Republican presidential candidates do.

Would it be wrong if a terrorist bomb was planted in Sasha’s school, and you had the person who planted it?
 
Is it more of a moral imperative to allow 200 innocent children to be shredded to pieces; or to arbitrarily declare a physical act as “terror”, without consideration of INTENT and CONSEQUENCE?
 
 
 

Check out Leo Panetta reposnse on Waterboarding and the Capture of Bin laden
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42880435/ns/today-today_news/t/cia-chief-waterboarding-aided-bin-laden-raid

I guess Obama benefited….

False premise. Today’s the big day for Robert the RRE !

Robert excited.  On Monday, he closes the hair salon to have a day of fun. Lately, he’s been going to the
Dollar Store at the Austin Galleria Mall (fanciest mall in town , with handy spittoons everywhere). It’s on the first floor, between Midas Muffler and Annie’s Used Hubcaps, directly across from the pawn shop.

While in the Dollar Store, Robert stops the employees to ask the price of every item, usually in the makeup section. After they call the mall cops, Robert goes limp and screams ” Mall Cop Brutality!” in his best Joan Crawford high pitched growl. “Monday, the best day of all ! ” Robert writes in his diary .

See above: If i was a terrorist, and wanted to blow up a school, I would give you false information, wasting your time, until it wen’t boom.
Also I know when it goes boom, you don’t.
Torture only works in 24.

The problem, Norbit, is great ethical dilemmas cannot be resolved by the resort to situational ethics. There are abiding principles which govern civilized people. Those principles don’t change for the sake of convenience. 

This president is a clown, he says it’s not ok to use enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboading on terrorists to extract highly valuable information that would save American lives, but it’s fine to KILL even US citizens that are terrorists, without trial.

The joke here is that you cannot be FOR killing and AGAINST waterboarding, you either have to be FOR both or AGAINST both, period! Republicans are clear and consistent on where they stand over both issues.

Many wish you would do exactly the same, but sadly, that’s not going to happen either…

Waterboarding?

President Obama is a wimp on this isn’t he? 

Still, he managed to get Osama Bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Atiyah ‘Abd al-Rahman, Muhammad Haqqani to name a few.

Waterboarding is a weak argument, touted by those who would keep many quivering with fear behind their sofas.

What you say is absolutely true, but I believe that there were only two (2) honest people on the stage last week, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. All of the other candidates will say exactly what they believe you want them to say. Truth is not a principle, it is not an absolute, it is an opportunity. To be sure, I believe Paul is a complete nutcase, and Santorum’s policy positions are largely so far out of the mainstream that only a handful of people can support them. But they are honest in their convictions, and they are the only two out of that sorry lot who are.

My thoughts exactly. I guess these people who responded so negatively didnt read where I put in my comment “when all else fails”.  Extreme tactics should be considered in extreme situations.

You are really incapable of engaging in a substantive discussion, aren’t you, Big Petty? Well, no problem. If you didn’t have self-amusement, you’d be unamused.

The party of Larry Flynt, Roseanne Barr and Bill Maher is just crawling with ethics and principles.

What would Maher say about what’s in your front yard, Robert?

Or, you’ll reveal the location!
That’s just sophistry, because no one knows.

Reason dictates consideration of INTENT & CONSEQUENCE in doing everything possible to protect the innocent; as opposed to suspending Reason in adherence to a capricious and intractable taboo.

Note to Robert: You are one classy hair stylist.

lol…..what is with repubs and gay-baiting?

I ain’t never confessed . I was framed all three times. I got alibis.

I see. You don’t understand what “ethics” is. That explains so much. Might I recommend a handy primer?

Rachels, James, the ELEMENTS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010)

Out of all the really terrible things W and Big D*ck did to us, the worst was making fear acceptable in America. We had never been a fearful nation. We are now.

No, he actually won by using Chicago tactics to knock out his primary opponents, one being a woman that helped him get his start in politics.  Then, with Axelrod’s help the divorce records of his Republican opponent were unsealed and Alan Keyes showed up to run against him in. 

I remember it well, he was my fake Senator who, with the help of Senator Emil Jones became a presidential candidate with a fake record.  Bills that other Illinois senators worked on for years were put in Obama’s name to pad his record.

Through the information garnered through waterboarding!

His macro-foreign policy has been a disaster.
What he did right is to keep W’s drone’s flying.

Did nothing about the biggest issues:

Iran
China
Mexico
Pakistan
IMF / WB
Arab Spring turning to Christian Purge
Oil Dependence…

Sure; waterboarding was the first instance of intel that led us to OBL.  As even Tom Friedman says:

“I’d give Obama high marks for fulfilling George Bush’s foreign policy”.

Thank our troops for their terrific successes in continuing to capture/kill terrorists.  They deserve great credit.

Why would I do that? To make the torturer stop? But he also stops if I tell him a lie! Granted, he starts again once he found out it was a lie, but then I am again several minutes closer to my goal.

Can’t argue my facts so you call me names.

bwahahahaha

stop projecting, it makes you look weak.

What if, is not a good argument. If an individual is going through a situation it is understandable to want to hurt someone. An entire nation should not be brought down to barbaric a level. and remember when you torture people they will want to torture you and if you torture an innocent person then you, “if you are a human” will be tortured the rest of your life. Always take the high road, or you will never have peace of mind.

*CONSPIRACY*

I guess I must be part of the vast conspiracy.

No Korean has ever tried to harm me or my family, but you Ms_Miki are killing me.

The only fear Robert has is if BFD catches him looking at SeniorHairdresserMatch.com on the computer or if someone shows up Saturday night in the same outfit. Either way it’s a slapfight.

If people really knew what was still being done to prisoners I suspect waterboarding would be a nonissue.

This is a multiple administration argument regularly trotted out to make some hay with as part of the campaigns.It draws people regardless of what the position is or who is talking about it.

There is no real answer as to whether it should be done or not or what techniques are or are not effective.That probably varies with every individual.Some will break under these methods,some will not.Some will fear them,some will be turned more away than toward us because of them.

For every bit of information we’ve gotten there are bits of misinformation.

Because of the secrecy of our government institutions we’ll never know the truth here,which allows politicians to mold it to suit their agendas.Ultimately as a campaign issue it is meaningless.

In other news Mr Obama was asked if he liked cream and sugar in his coffee because Herman Cain did not.He said that was wrong so Tommy will be typing out a 1000 word piece on that shortly.It will have as much value as this piece.

They also don’t preclude applied reasoning in consideration of each unique situation.

Precluding a specific physical act by branding it “torture”, without consideration of intent and consequence is unreasonable.

We won’t subjugate reason to the subjective beliefs of intransigent indoctrination.

As long as he keeps killing high level terrorist I don’t care what his views on waterboarding are. Of course the question is would he have been able to accomplish this without some of the waterboarding? Some claim he could not. All political bull IMO.

Obama has been good on the war on terror. What is funny to me is that he tends to kill more indiscriminately then Bush ever did with the drone strikes. I have no issue with this. But I have no issue with waterboarding. However many on the left who claim to hate waterboarding seem quiet on Obama’s drone strikes where innocent people get killed also.

It’s a war – Even though the Obama admin hates to admit it. War is hell. The enemy fights like no enemy ever has by attacking and hiding behind innocent woman and children. If it takes some non leathal waterboarding to save innocent lives (which it has been reported that it has) then I say go right ahead.

I’m fairly certain that GWBush was a Republican when he ignored the President’s Daily Brief on Aug. 6, 2011 that was titled Bin Laden Determined To Strike In US, which allowed the attacks on Sept. 11, 2011 to take place.

In rare circumstances you say?  How many times has waterboarding been used?  I haven’t researched the question but from listening to the news it seems that it has be very rarely used by our side.

It was a Democrat who who got Bin Laden (and a host of others) and you’re still crying like a baby?  We are getting the bad guys who alluded Dubya for years so you can now stop crying!

Of course you use torture.  Shoot him in the head and then see what he says.

You are correct in stating Obama has overseen significant victories.  He has done so by blowing up people right and left – including their families who happen to be nearby.  I guess squirting water up someone’s nose is more horrifying to you that blowing up someone into little pieces and taking the target’s kids along with him.  And, I could be wrong, but I didn’t remember your distaste for the sodomization (real torture, not your definition) of Ghaddafi by the “good guys,” then having him dragged up and down the streets.  Good ole Obama, got another one, didn’t he!

You quote someone and then say “or something like that” … you are totally f**ked so I didn’t bother reading the rest of what is probably more insanity.

Bad typo, “than” not “that.”

Through the information not garnered through waterboarding:

OSAMA BIN LADEN killed

Yes, President Obama is a ruthless SOB and that is why we love him.

Bills that other Illinois senators worked on for years were put in Obama’s name to pad his record.

Because they were starting the conspiracy to elect him president?

No to waterboarding, it’s torture.  Yes to unmanned drones killing US citizens without a trial.  I ask you.  Would you rather be waterboarded or killed?  Hmmm. 

Kantian philosophy informs this debate. If we apply a universal ethic wherein we ask ourselves “would it be right if everyone did the same.” The answer is clear: NO. The

It was Obama who got Bin Laden killed….

The last time I checked it is more immoral to kill a human being without a fair trial, than to torture him.

You are actually the same left-wing loons that think the death penalty is immoral, even though capital punishment is only administered after a fair trial and thoughtful appellate process that takes years.

Kill without fair trial = Good
Enhanced interrogation = Bad

Speaking of moral capacity…LOL

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Waterboarded 183 Times in One Month

Chicago tactics, mmm good!

He’s an ex-ACORN attorney, and Tawana-styled community-organizer.
They’ve already tracked the OWS organizers to his slimeball co-criminal, Rahm!

A President must put the needs of the nation before the needs of his family.  

Do any of you people sitting behind your computers have the responsibility of protecting other people’s lives?  Is your one and only job to keep a monster from killing a group of children held hostage in a school (or something similar)?  Just curious.

A realistic voice of reason, thank you!

JohnDoe,

1. So it was unconstitutional for Union Soliders to kill Confederate soldiers, officers and spies on the battlefield during the Civil War, since they were, by definition, “American citizens who declared war on their own country?”

2. What tactics or measures do you feel are “over the line” if you believe in waterboarding?  According to John Yoo for the Bush Administration, the children of a suspect can have their testicles crushed on the President’s say so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz01hN9l-BM

Are you down the that, Johnny?

–Cobra

Based on intel from Waterboarding which as u indicate is a Republican tactic.

Gloves. What is the truth about Obama’s primary opponent in his Senate race?

One month before the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Obama was way down in the polls, about to lose to Blair Hull, a multimillionaire securities trader.But then The Chicago Tribune — where Axelrod used to work — began publishing claims that Hull’s second ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, had sought an order of protection against him during their 1998 divorce proceedings.

From then until Election Day, Hull was embroiled in fighting the allegation that he was a “wife beater.” He and his ex-wife eventually agreed to release their sealed divorce records. His first ex-wife, daughters and nanny defended him at a press conference, swearing he was never violent.

During a Democratic debate, Hull was forced to explain that his wife kicked him and he had merely kicked her back.Hull’s substantial lead just a month before the primary collapsed with the nonstop media attention to his divorce records. Obama sailed to the front of the pack and won the primary. Hull finished third with 10 percent of the vote.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=47438

I read both of your abusive and angry posts regarding Obama and there are NO FACTS. Sorry.

So basically all the name calling is based on the fact that he can’t combate your opinions.

That’s despicable! What happened with Obama’s first Senate opponent?

Luckily for Axelrod, Obama’s opponent in the general election had also been divorced.

The Republican nominee was Jack Ryan, a graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard law and business schools, who had left his lucrative partnership at Goldman Sachs to teach at an inner-city school on the South Side of Chicago.
But in a child custody dispute some years earlier, Ryan’s ex-wife, Hollywood sex kitten Jeri Lynn Ryan, had alleged that, while the couple was married, Jack had taken her to swingers clubs in Paris and New York.Jack Ryan adamantly denied the allegations. In the interest of protecting their son, he also requested that the records be put permanently under seal.

Axelrod’s courthouse moles obtained the “sealed” records and, in no time, they were in the hands of every political operative in Chicago. Knowing perfectly well what was in the records, Chicago Tribune attorneys flew to California and requested that the court officially “unseal” them — over the objections of both Jack and Jeri Ryan.

A California judge ordered them unsealed, which allowed newspapers to publish the salacious allegations, and four days later, Ryan dropped out of the race under pressure from idiot Republicans (who should be tracked down and shot).

With a last-minute replacement of Alan Keyes as Obama’s Republican opponent, Obama was able to set an all-time record in an Illinois Senate election, winning with a 43 percent margin.

And that’s how Obama became a senator four years after losing a congressional race to Bobby Rush. (In a disastrous turn of events, Rush was not divorced.)

Axelrod destroyed the only two men who stood between Obama and the Senate with illicitly obtained, lurid allegations from their pasts.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=47438

Eric,

1.  Do you believe that “war crimes” exist, and if so…cite me examples.
2.  Since we’re not officially at “war” with a foreign government (leave North Korea off for a second), would you cede that other nations should be able to treat American citizens and soldiers in the same manner as you propose we treat them?

–Cobra

The President is using waterboarding now. Using it to shift attention away from his economic failures.

Obama is a little more contemporary; he prefers extrajudicial slaughter by drone strikes.  However, Cain, Gingrich, Romney, Perry, Bachmann and Santorum are more old fashion; they’re all marching with the Imperial Japanese Army.

“This wasn’t a Prisoner of War camp, it was a secret interrogation center called Ofuna where high-value captured men were housed in solitary confinement, starved, tormented and tortured to divulge military secrets.  Because Ofuna was kept secret from the outside world, the Japanese operated with an absolutely free hand.  

“The [U.S. and British Servicemen] in Ofuna, said the Japanese, weren’t POWs; they were ‘unarmed combatants’ at war against Japan, and as such didn’t have the rights that international law accorded POWs.  In fact, they had no rights at all.  If captives ‘confessed their crimes against Japan’, they’d be treated ‘as well as regulations permit.’ Over the course of the war, some one thousand Allied captives would be hauled into Ofuna, and many would be held there for years.”
 
Source: Hillenbrand, Laura; Unbroken, A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, Chapter 19, Random House, 2010. 

What is funny to me is that he tends to kill more indiscriminately then Bush ever did with the drone strikes    .seem quiet on Obama’s drone strikes where innocent people get killed also.

Seriously????
How many TENS OF THOUSANDS of innocent people died due to bombing and fighting in Iraq?
How many THOUSANDS of US soldiers died in the Iraq war?

PERHAPS what you should have said is

Obama has been good on the war on terror, but let me see if I can twist this in to partisan BULL$HIT.

I have no doubt but that sounds and odors escape from every orifice of your body 24/7!

I think all I am saying is that any of us might imagine certain contrived circumstances where “torture” is persumed to save millions of lives and I think that none of us would be so quick to just say torture is unacceptable under any circumstances. Rudeboy’s point was that it would have to be a real, not imagined or contrived circumstance that would have to justify torture.

You were so ugly as a  child, your mom had to put a pork chop around your neck to get the dog to play with ya!.

Obama prefers extrajudicial slaughter by drone strikes

I have seen better looking faces on Iodine bottles.

Shut up, you’ll never be the man your mother is.

I’d like to see things from your point of view but I can’t seem to get my head that far up my ass.

Shock me, say something intelligent.

You’re not yourself today. I noticed the improvement immediately.

So you are back to belching and farting again.

A Hellfire Missile from a drone offers a quick, relatively painless death.
Torture kills you slowly, painfully, over a longer period of time.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6988054/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/reports-detail-abu-ghraib-prison-death-was-it-torture/#.TsEkjFadZrI

What is  “waterboarding?” 
Having been subjected to this technique, I can say: It is risky but
not entirely dangerous when applied in training for a very short period.
However, when performed on an unsuspecting prisoner, waterboarding is a
torture technique – without a doubt. There is no way to sugarcoat it.
In
the media, waterboarding is called “simulated drowning,” but that’s a
misnomer. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually
filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning.
Unless
you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing
feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your
throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill
your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.
How much
of this the victim is to endure depends on the desired result (in the
form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the
obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water
that is ingested and for the physiological signs that show when the
drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific
suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.
Waterboarding
is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the
inevitability of blackout and expiration. Usually the person goes into
hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch.
If it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia – meaning,
the loss of all oxygen to the cells.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/i-waterboarding-torture-i-article-1.227670#ixzz1dgqyCCPR

”

–Cobra

Barry needs to be waterboarded so he can explain all of his lies.

Ok. I am going to bite. What the F is a “tawana-styled community-organizer?”

Its a curiosity of war that killing is considered morally acceptable, but torture is not.

3 people were waterboarded.

Nobody on this board is an interrogation expert (most likely). 

So frankly I think we should all quit debating the effectiveness of a topic which most of us know nothing about.

Water on the face, bad. Hellfire missile up the wazoo, good.

I don’t know whether torture “works” or not.

But we caught Osama Bin Laden nearly 2 years AFTER waterboarding was ended by the Obama admin.  That suggests to me that it may not be essential.

At some point we need to be principled.

I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and crap a better argument than that

A daily briefing document allowed 9/11 to take place?

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Actually, it was Navy Seals who got bin Laden.

Our military hasn’t used torture, nor have they waterboarded anyone.

Someone should get you back to the zoo.

People who are more than happy to behead our guys with a rusty knife might start waterboarding them? Well, we do that to them in training, so they’re ready for it.

The issue is not what the parent of a crime victim would want. We all know what that would be. The issue is what the state can do, and for decades and more, the US has prohibited torture both domestically and per international treaty. So, Ms Miki, go on and clamour for torture and vengence. Your government’s duty is to provide justice.

what tactics would I want to use? the most effective ones… Before asking a skewed question (mind you, just like that reporter did), you should be asking what techniques have been statistically most effective. Not what worked on “24″.

Sorry, c&Ping does not make your statements any more persuasive, in fact, it makes them less so.

Very little goes on in Chicago that isn’t a conspiracy. The Combine never sleeps.

WiddleBabyDanielson, He was not waterboarded 183 times in a month.  The 183 refers to how many pours of water was used during the five times KSM was waterboarded. 

The United States hanged Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American prisoners of war.

“There should be little doubt from American history that we consider
that as torture otherwise we wouldn’t have tried and convicted Japanese
for doing that same thing to Americans,” McCain said during a news
conference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/29/politics/main3554687.shtml

You’re the one defending sadism here. Not I.

–Cobra

Do you know what a President’s Daily Briefing is?  It’s a briefing, George Tenant used to personally brief President Bush and he did not ignore the 8/6 briefing, he requested it.  Bush asked the CIA to compile several years of threat assessments regarding bin Laden and brief him on it.  That is what that particular PDB was all about.

Girl.

Says who?

A September 14, 2007, estimate by Opinion Research Businss
(ORB), an independent British polling agency, suggests that the total
Iraqi violent death toll due to the Iraq War since the U.S.-led invasion
is in excess of 1.2 million (1,220,580). Although higher than the 2006 Lancet estimate
through June 2006, these results, which were based on a survey of 1,499
adults in Iraq from August 12–19, 2007, are more or less consistent
with the figures that were published in the Lancet study.

Then there was Obama’s first political mentor, Alice Palmer, who introduced him to the politicos at Bill Ayers’ house. How did Obama return the favor? Knocked her off the ballot and won the primary for her seat running unopposed.

Heh, not because he wanted it to happen:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058229/Obama-playing-golf-20-minutes-Navy-SEAL-Osama-Bin-Laden-mission.html

And the White House Insider is at it again:
http://theulstermanreport.com/2011/11/11/white-house-insider-obama-hesitated-%e2%80%93-panetta-issued-order-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/

It’s ironic how the party that reveres Ronald Reagan and worships his every utterance, so conveniently discards his views on things like torture, which included a revulsion of methods that were inhumane. 

The cherry picking of his legacy never ceases to both amuse and alarm me. 

Yep I am going to keep on clamouring.  Justice for who??  The terriorist?

No conspiracy:

Why Emil Jones Took a Hit for Obama

http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/The-Godfather-Took-a-Hit-for-Obama-96140239.html

Paul and Huntsman are Republicans.

He followed the Bush Iraq War exit strategy that was laid out before he took office. He has had many others. but I’ll leave you with this.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/nyts-thomas-friedman-gives-obama-high-marks-for-fulfilling-bushs-foreign-policy/

Not exactly a conservative guy from a conservative paper? No?

Very good, Gloves!

May I add that Obama supporters launched an e-mail campaign to the Chicago Tribune requesting that they sue to have the Ryan divorce records unsealed.  WLS joined the Trib and in the suite and a California judge unsealed the records.  The Ryan’s didn’t appeal and Jack Ryan resigned the campaign shortly after.

Is anyone supposed to take your comments facetiously, when you can’t be bothered to write competently or seriously?

…Agreed.

It needs to be very exceptional circumstances, rather than the ‘Gung Ho’ rule.

Instead of hypotheticals, with the three waterboarding cases,  they had information they used to test the terrorists to know if they were lying.  They weren’t lying after the sessions and many intelligence officials from both administrations have, on the record, said the procedure produced actionable intelligence that saved lives.

Now, you can say Dennis Blair, Leon Panetta, and John Brennan don’t know what they are talking about, but I think they do.

Waterboarding has never been proven to be torture. So it is not illegal period! It is everyone’s opinion.  But let me tell you what real torture is: It is the American citizens who had to decide if they should leap from the burning buildings on 911 or be burned alive. That was real torture. Remember?

‘And Democrats will allow terrorists to destroy America and kill Americans.’ Ms_Miki Taking

Now you’re just being plain childish, silly and facetious.

And we all know king Oblamer is always right!! (eye roll)

Hows that closing club gitmo the first year he is in office going for him?

WiddleBaby,

Both the Lancet and the ORB study have been debunked time and time again:

Here’s Michael Fumento, an independent war correspondent disproving Lancet:

http://www.fumento.com/military/lancet2008.html

Iraq Body Count discredits the ORB study:

Exaggerated claims, substandard research and a disservice to truth

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/beyond/exaggerated-orb/

Obama is the lone rational, logical and ethical brain in the upcoming presidential race.

Torture?  Water-boarding is mock execution.  Some even die and are revived to be killed several times.  You must be very ignorant of what torture is.
tor·ture
   [tawr-cher]  Show IPA noun, verb, -tured, -tur·ing.noun
1.the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment orrevenge, as a means of getting a confession or information,or for sheer cruelty.
2.a method of inflicting such pain.
3.Often, tortures. the pain or suffering caused or undergone.
4.extreme anguish of body or mind; agony.
5.a cause of severe pain or anguish.

Get a clue, BTW, I support Dr. Ron Paul for president.

Every congressmen that believe in waterboarding need to summit to the waterboarding excercise and see if they feel the same way after. after al it is “harmless and not torture”.  Much like the police using of stun guns.  They all have to be stunned so they know how their victims feel. 

In Iceland, the prisoners are snowboarded.

Are our men waterboarded 183 times in one month?

GlovesDonahue
I normally avoid these types post, because they seem to ramble and not say anything, but where you abused as a child. So much hate.  By the way prove to me at what point in the Bush administration did he stopped “advanced interrogation tecnics”, i.e. torture.  

Waterboard A Teabagger For Christ

So, you think we waterboarded KSM, Abu Zubaydah, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri to prove that we’re better than them? My, you are a dim one.

No, we didn’t. They weren’t waterboarding people. They were doing forced ingestion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cure_%28torture%29#Japan

And that’s not all they were prosecuted for.

John McCain isn’t always a good source to draw from concerning torture.  We did execute Japanese for torture that included waterboarding  rape, murder, etc.  Never for only waterboarding and the Japanese method of waterboarding was extremely different than the method used on the three mass terrorist murderers.

Here ae three of the executed and their charges, you can check out the rest at the site:

Sawamura, Masatashi

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~warcrime/Japan/Yokohama/Reviews/Yokohama_Review_Sawamura.htm

Minemo, Ginji

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~warcrime/Japan/Yokohama/Reviews/Yokohama_Review_Minemo.htm

Hata, Seitaro

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~warcrime/Japan/Yokohama/Reviews/Yokohama_Review_Hata.htm

You mean information gathered by the same outfit that did the waterboarding?

You better get Leon Panetta to issue a retraction because he said information gleaned from waterboarding was used in getting bin Laden.  Since Panetta was the man behind the whole thing, had it set up and gave the go ahead before Obama even knew about it, I credit the Seals, Panetta and President Bush.

Is there anyone in conflict with America that treats Americans with any sort of adherence to any rules at all?

So, how many people drowned? How many people are dead all these years after being waterboarded? None, right?

It’s only sadism if you do it for fun.

I wonder if you think they’re uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible?”

Nope, no liberal bias there!!  Good grief!

Why don’t we ask someone who was actually gathering this intelligence from captured terrorists?  I suggest you read “Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda” by Ali Soufan.  His main conclusion is that based on his [extensive] experience, things like waterboarding and other forms of torture were ineffective, and actually did more harm than good. 

I would love for someone to ask the Republicon nominees, what would they do if our soldiers, who were captured, were waterboarded for whatever information they might have!!

So you dumb enough to think that Al Qaeda takes into account what we do before they would decide how to treat out soldiers? 

This is an example of media bias.  Notice how the question was asked by Dan Lothian, “I wonder if you think they’re uniformed, out of touch, or irresponsible?”    Biased?   How obvious can you get Dan?  Really, do you think Americans don’t notice it?     

You’re not very smart, are you? 

You listen to a lot of Glenn Beck, don’t you? 

Here’s one interrogation expert’s assesment:

The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda,

By Ali Soufan

Just started reading it…

These right wingers don’t give a fig about that.  When our SPY plane and crew were captured by the Chinese back in 2001….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mq0zQbvtzM

“THE pilot of the American spyplane that crash-landed in China revealed yesterday that he and his crew were subjected to sleep deprivation and other torture methods….
…

His first interrogation was for four-and-a-half hours,
starting in the middle of the night. “I hadn’t been to bed in about 30
hours at that point. From then on, it was lack of sleep, different
wake-up calls at all times. I had to try to steal some sleep when I
could.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1311015/Spy-plane-crew-was-tortured-by-China-says-pilot.html

Now, according to the Army Field Manual:“Sleep Deprivation: Appendix M of the Army Field Manual
allows for sleep deprivation which was described by Amnesty as
constituting cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment8. The
Army Field Manual describes the practice of not allowing detainees to
sleep for more than 4 hours per night over 30 days, which can be
prolonged upon approval. This technique has been used to break the
detainee down both physically and psychologically. Sleep deprivation
causes many psychological and physical issues such as headaches, high
blood pressure, stress, lowered immunity, impaired verbal processing and
complex problem solving. It has also been known to cause depression,
irritability and a reduced sense of wellbeing. The Article 22 of the
Third Geneva Convention outlines that a prisoner of war cannot be held
in conditions that are prejudicial to their health.”

http://www.amnesty.org.au/hrs/comments/20575/ 

I would like to hear our right-winged friends opinions on this DOCUMENTED recent account of Americans in captivity subjected to what Amnesty International describes as “torture.” Thumbs up or thumbs down?
Also, would any of the right wingers here justify the Chinese waterboarding Lt. Osborn and the rest of his crew, since they endorse America using that technique on captives?

–Cobra

I dont know why you are asking me these questions, the US constitution and legal code explicitly defines what is constitutional and what isn’t.

I have been very clear that a sane human being cannot be FOR murder without fair trial, and AGAINST enhanced interrogation techniques, it is simply illogical.

As a matter of ‘principle’ you have to be consistent by being FOR both, or being AGAINST both.

But if you are asking me what my personal stance is; then I should let you know that I will use enhanced interrogation techniques when required, and I will also kill even US citizens that declare and fight war against the United States. I just will not decide to be AGAINST the lesser of both evils, and FOR the more serious issue. Only liberals think in that manner; and the same liberals that are FOR murder without fair trial, are the very ones that do not want the death penalty, even after a fair trial and appellate process. They are the same ones that fight for this right, and that right, but ignore the most fundamental of all rights, without which all other rights are meaningless: the right to LIFE of all humans.

You missed the point!! If Al Qaeda were to torture our soldiers, what would you like to have happen to them??

Then, after you have contemplated that for a few minutes, remind yourself that this is the United States and we follow the rule of law of a civilized society… or do you think we should follow the rules of our enemy??

I highly doubt you’d be in a position to know. 

Who says it’s only Al Qaeda who’ll hold or capture American pilots, soldiers or citizens? We’ve got troops and bases all over the world. We have American commerce, trade and tourists all over the world.

–Cobra

Waterboarding is torture.  The US brought war crimes charges against the Japanese after WW2 for doing it.  It also directly contributes to putting American soldiers in harms way, since outrage over torture is a powerful recruiting tool for terrorists.  There would be no debate if President Obama had allowed the people who sanctioned and engaged in waterboarding to be prosecuted for it.  Since he gave them a pass, he opened the door for a return to the practice.

 Oh, that Al Quaeda would limit their torture to waterboarding.
Waterboarding is pussy to them.
They waterboard their children at playtime

OBAMA: “They’re Wrong”

Gee….he is so smart.
I wish I could come up with such elaborate comments!!
I heard him one other time say “Not so”

WOW!!!
Genius
 

Bobby Rush was a REAL Black Panther, and not the fake, wannabe NBPP that perform on cue for Fox News.

 FYI.

–Cobra

No.  The Constitution is an amendable document subject to interpretation. That’s what the SCOTUS decides what is “constitutional” or not by majority decision.

Second, what is the GOAL of drone attacks?  To kill the desired target. A Hellfire missile is extremely effective at killing.

 The goal of waterboarding/torture?  Presumably, to obtain information, that many experts say cannot be trusted because it’s given under pain and duress.

 The history of America began with kiilling people without trials, remember?

–Cobra

Are they uninformed, out of touch or irresponsible?
Nothing like the leftist main stream media finally dropping ALL pretense of fairness and being unbiased!
I guess it’s so out there that they are in the bag for this cretin, that there is no longer any point at all in pretending to be something your not.
And as to the question, never mind that Leon Penetta, a democrat and Barry’s pick to head up the department responsible for using water boarding to obtain information in that way, stated flatly that water boarding led to the information that resulted in not only the locating of Bin Laden but the stopping of many other terror attacks. The left can NEVER let facts stand in the way of their bias.

Osama got killed when Obama was the president. You’re still in denial huh?

Hell of a lot smarter than you Skipper.

Get that out of the Kos dictionary?

Republicans have no morals and will do what they’re told like good little sheep.  

We’ve been thru this nonsense before, with the stupid ticking time bomb meme. You really do not know what outcome flows from such hypotheticals, you just raise this one to draw on primitive hominid emotions.

Tommy made a great catch here, particularly since the PURPOSE of Mediaite is to comment on how media operates. I think that gets lost a lot by the other posters Mediaite uses, but Tommy never loses sight of it, which is why his posts are routinely the best.

I think the precisely faithful answer to the loaded question would be this:

I don’t know what level of information they are relying on, but the torture memos from the OLC is out there in the public, I made sure of that, and there is lots and lots of evidence from psychologists about the mechanisms of toture, that is works to make people talk, at least most people talk, but it provides no assurance of what they say being at all reliable. That is all, of course, beside the other point, that resorting to it is against the values of the American republican democratic form of governance.

I also don’t know whether the GOP candidates are out of touch, or even what the question means to refer to. Out of touch with American values, yes. Out of touch with those who would best enable them to get the nomination, that’s not for me to say, and indeed I would concede by definition that they are in a far better position than I am to judge that.

Irresponsible, I would say that one is closer to what I think; but then again, just for my own views of what’s in the best interests of the country, it’s actually a good thing that this is being articulated in the other party, because that helps me out in defining what I’m running against.

**

Now, no one is going to be happy with a professorial answer like that, or at least no one other than the progressives and professional left who make up less than 15% of even the D party support. 

So the President’s actual answer implies all three of those nuanced answers and works better as a sound bite. It’s almost like the guy knows what he’s doing or something.

See, this is the sort of thing Mediaite was supposed to generate discussion over in the first place, how media affects message. Tommy is the only true adherent to that laudable goal.

You left out a critical factor, and it’s a doozy: only when there is independent verification of what you are after finding out, because tortured statements are as likely if not more likely to be lies, so you need some way to tell truth from lies.

But then, if you have that, if you have independent verification, you don’t need torture in the first place.

Folks here should consider reading the book by Ali Soufan on how one conducts interrogation properly and usefully: it’s more about building trust and reasoning with the prisoner than it is about coercion.

See what happens when you don’t follow the proper goals of Mediaite and Tommy’s proper frame? You end up with discussion that spins off into a trillion little bites of tres stupid.

Just his opinion? Hey pal, it’s just YOUR opinion too, since it’s his opinion that governs what the CIA and the FBI and armed forces do in prisoner interrogations. 

The rest of what you say is just piffle. We KNOW Bush ordered waterboarding, because he has admitted, on top of all the evidence that came before that government was condoning it and directing it and ordering it. We have just the opposite from Obama: he has ordered specific interrogation limits which specifically forbid waterboarding and toture more generally, and he has been consistent in speaking out against it, right from his “I’m against dumb war” speech in 2002. So when you assert “Obama would waterboard anyone who got in his way” that’s no different from saying “my dad can beat up your dad”, just pre-juvenile immaturity. 

He didn’t win either the Senate primary or the Senate seat because of anything he did with “his opponent’s sealed divorce records … given to the press”. In fact there was no such effect in the D primary for the seat at all: he simply won in the party primary convention, by a landslide. In the general election the seat, what happened was that Republican nominee Jack Ryan WITHDREW from the generla contest. It was in fact the Chicago Tribune and the local ABC affiliate that applied to the court supervising the divorce proceedings, in Los Angeles not Illinois, and who published everything the presiding judge ruled that could be released. Among those records were the substance of Jeri Ryan’s complaints about Jack having coerced into a bunch of weirdo sex acts.

So now we all know, if we did not already know: GD is a GD liar.

Again, not true. Carol Mosley Braun decided on her own not to contest the D primary, for simple reason that she was planning on running for what Chicago pols call the “second best job in America”, mayor of Chicago – which she might have won, if Richard Daley had not changed his mind and run again. And Obama still had to beat out 14 other candidates in an over-packed zoo of a primary contest, and did not eke out victory a Mittens might do with the GOP Show or Perry has done more than once in Texas, but rather won in a landslide, from actual, you know, votes. People vote and someone gets the most votes and they usually get to claim the win, the exception being Bush v Gore.  

Politics is full of operatives like Emile Jones, characters, fixers; no president in history has ever been elected without them. 

I actually think you do not know a thing about Illinois politics and just went with winger memes here, going with the “my fake Senator” angle to fake authenticity. You have all  the appearances of a liar.

Name a place that is not like that. Name the place where politics is pure, free of all human content and failing. Name one.

Simple answers for a simpleton – oh, it’s NOBITS! Then no surprise. Nobits is president of the Lawn Protectors Committee of the local chaper of the International Winger Meme Workers of the Word: the vewy vewy wobbwies.

You link to HUMAN EVENTS for FACTS. Human Events is Wingosphere Central, the fruit battiest of the fruit bats, the world wide hq of Birtherism, the curator to the meme.

Anyway all that’s crap. The surprise was not Hull only getting 10%, the surprise was that D primary voters came together so strongly for Obama, because he was not a connected political playah. I guess that with the seat having been held by a republican, Peter Fitzgerald, the Ds just were so desperate to win they went with the strongest candidate.

Seriously GD, do you believe others here think anyone else among the 15 D primary candidates would have won the seat? Hull? You LIKED Hull? You would prefer HULL as POTUS to Obama? 

You’re a GD winger, GD, and everyone knows it. You screw around here, it’s your goal and your chief contribution. Go apply to Human Events for a job writing this crap.

Note the Source for the Source, as usual: Winger HQ to Winger Field Op, Winger HQ to Winger Field Op, do you read me WFO?

Poow widdle Jack Wyan, a compwete victim, a bwiwwiant caweew nipped in the bud.

It’s war! Innocents are going to die. War sucks no question. But is waterboarding better then drone killing? Thats a question for you libs. As for me I am at piece with my answer.

You can say it’s patisan BS. I am just saying for all of the crying that many on the left have done about Water boarding they don’t seem to have a problem with Drones killing innocents.

If you read what I said you will see that I liked what Obama has done with this war. I don’t bitch either way. It’s a war and I hope we win so that our country and the world is safer.

Cobra I would rather be waterboarded any day then to have my head cut off.

And those are the only options available, huh?

–Cobra

Daniel Pearl was not given a choice.

Moron, liberals never support killing people without a fair trial. That’s what Republicans support, across the board. You all support wars of imperialism. You all support assassinations. You all support the renditions, the torture, etc.

In other words, nothing you’ve said here makes any sense.

Umm…no. That’s what Bush and the Republicans did, moron. That’s what happened on the Eleventh of September, and you’ve been defending it ever since.

Nobody but Republicans have ever allowed terrorists to destroy America and kill Americans.

The reason you’re lying is because you are a Republican, and all Republicans are systematically trained to say precisely the opposite of the truth.

You teenage left-wing morons sometimes leave comments here that make me believe you are on cheap hard drugs.

Of all the 5 people(including Osama Bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Samir Khan, Muammar Gaddafi) that have been murdered/assassinated under Obama’s regime, which of them was tried in court like Sadam Hussein? Haven’t you left-wing loons been proudly touting the murder of these folks as the “huge success of Obama’s foreign policy”, including left-wing media talking heads? Why wasn’t there any outrage by the left about not trying them in court, as there would have been if the murders of 3 US citizens were done under Bush? What else has been listed by the left as a success of Obama’s foreign policy apart from these killings, can you name ANY?

What part of my comment did you moron not understand? maybe you cannot read, I have made it clear that only an idiot like would support murder and think turtue is bad, and I made it clear that a human being of sound mind can either support both or condem both. So far, your president and his lunatic supporters are in favor of killing without fair trial, and instead condem enhanced interrogation which is a lesser evil under common law.

Republicans are consistent in their principles and are not as crazy as you, so instead they are in favor of killing terrorist US citizens that declare and fight war against the US, and they also favor enhanced interrogation techniques.They dont choose killing and condemn the lesser evil.

I will not respond to you any more, you seem to leave comments as a programmed robot would do. if you are going to make logical arguments, you might want to read my comments thoroughly first. Actually I’d prefer if you go finish your homework, you MORON.

Moron, Bush murdered thousands of U.S. troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and you supported him every step of the way. Liberals always support the rule of law.

Republicans support assassinations, Republicans support torture, Republicans support rendition, Republicans support government spying, Republicans support the suspension of habeas corpus. Try to remember that you are a Republican, and all Republicans are systematically trained to say precisely the opposite of the truth. It’s what defines you.

Liberals always support the Constitution and rule of law. Republicans NEVER do. Republicans hate the United States with a passion. Liberalism is what makes our country great.

So you’re endorsing the idea that Americans should be tortured when held in foreign lands, since the “only” OTHER option is to kill them?

–Cobra

Oh,…you’re one of those folks who thinks their IP address is untraceable by the federal government, right?

–Cobra

No, I simply used Daniel Pearl as an example. Pearl was not tortured, he was executed by beheading.