Recently, it's been reported that the CIA destroyed tapes of interrogations.

As stated in the article:


Questions for debate:
1. Was the destruction of these tapes a coverup or necessary because they posed a serious security risk to CIA officials and their families?
2. If you believe this was a coverup, who was responsible and who should be held accountable?
3. If you beleive this was due to security risks, is this the way his matter should have been resolved?

1. Was the destruction of these tapes a coverup or necessary because they posed a serious security risk to CIA officials and their families?

According to my morning paper- someone that can link this may want to- they said "they were afraid it would lead to criminal charges against agents" as the reason for destroying the tapes. That pretty much DEFINES coverup, don't ya think?


2. If you believe this was a coverup, who was responsible and who should be held accountable?

Well, the correct way to go about it is to subject the entire bush regime to the same techniques- after all, they said it wasn't torture, right?

Bottom line- Gonzales is the #1 most accountable, with some lessor accountability, but not far, for his chain of command.


3. If you beleive this was due to security risks, is this the way his matter should have been resolved?

I believe what they said. In the Washington of today where leaks are common and the guy after “the story” could often care less about National security or any ones family destruction of data not being used is best.

Of course it is a cover up! It's part of the standing operating procedure of the Bush Administration. That is, when one of the many illegal schemes begin to unravel; destroy the evidence, give dissembling testimony, lie if necessary, and use the presidential pardoning power as the last resort. The administration was so concerned about revealing the identity of CIA operatives and their covers that they leaked Valarie Plame's name to multiple reporters.

Not that I expect it to happen, but the correct way to get to bottom of this, is to appoint a truly independent prosecutor and let him or her conduct a thorough investigation. It's hard to believe that will be forthcoming from an Attorney General who can't even bring himself to identify water boarding as torture. The next best thing is to conduct Congressional investigations but that would be impeded by real and bogus security claims. Also, the two intelligence committees that would logically conduct hearing are themselves heavily compromised. Neither Congresswoman Jane Harmon nor Senator Jay Rockefeller inspire much confidence in me.

Great, great article on the topic in Newsweek: Watching Torture

So, blur the faces of tortur... erm, officers administering the "enhanced interrogation technique" if you believe it provides security risk before releasing the tape. If that was not a cover-up, I don't know what is.

What cover-up? In today's press briefing Dana Perino told reporters the White House issued a preservation order. We can safely assume all evidence has been canned.

Cover-up?

Was the destruction of these tapes a cover-up or necessary because they posed a serious security risk to CIA officials and their families?
Bull. The matter could've been investigated by appropriate congressional committees behind closed doors. Hell, CNN could have broadcast a public hearing with a screen and voice adjuster protecting the identities of spooks and torturers. Besides, doesn't the Military Commissions Act of 2006, voted into law with the help of Democrats, grant retroactive immunity for torture as back as 1996? Oh but I forgot. Yesterday The Washington Post reported Pelosi and Rockefeller knew about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" as far back as 2002. That could also turn out to be bull because it credits a bunch of anonymous officials, but I wouldn't be surprised at this point. A bill proposed by a Democratic congresswoman targeting thought crime in free speech was passed in both chambers.

There will be no justice here, no return to the rule of law. This is a runaway train with the help of the Republican and Republican-lite parties.

Was the destruction of these tapes a cover-up or necessary because they posed a serious security risk to CIA officials and their families?

I do believe I have argued with or maybe just personally agreed with debates we have had here against the release of such images etc. based on the belief they aid the enemy. This is something I still believe but what I do not argue or feel ever necessary is the destruction of such evidence. I think what harms us most as a nation is our current uncertainty... What we do..do we torture? What we believe.... is it torture? These are all huge political and moral dilemmas we as a nation face right now and to deny us the certainty of our actions is a risk to all American families.

Ya sure. The stupidity of destroying the tapes is that members of Congress were briefed on the methods, including Pelosi, in detail before they were used and they approved them. With the destruction of the tapes the Dems now have the perfect opportunity to claim the methods were different than those approved which is unlikely to be the case.

But now them Dems rubbing there hands together in glee will milk this for all its worth – rather than do the peoples work. Hopefully people are smat enough to see through the sham.

Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002
In Meetings, Spy Panels' Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say
By Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 9, 2007; Page A01

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7120801664.html

So if that article is true, why destroying the tapes?
As one former CIA official said on NPR the other night, if CIA wanted to protect the identities of CIA operatives, thousands of tapes should be destroyed that are not.
If Democrats approved torture, I'll be the first to say shame on them.

There was no need to destroy the tapes as they could have been copied and had the faces blurred with technology available at wal mart. Then the originals could have been destroyed.
Hell whatever happened to the age old tortuerers black mask? We could afford to buy them ski masks from target?


Makes me wonder what exactly was on the tapes -- or maybe who?
Cover up.

Does it matter. It seems clear by some posters that there is no evil too great because of their crippling fear of terrorists.

I'm no defender of Nancy Pelosi and particularly not of Jane Harmon or Jay Rockefeller but this article is based on 2 unidentified sources and differs from Pelosi's version of events. Will the administration release the Harmon letter she says she sent objecting to the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (torture) after the second briefing? Will it release enough information on the first briefing to confirm or substantiate Pelosi's version of events?

Another thing you need to keep in mind is that, even if the WP story is entirely true, it only makes the Congressional leaders moderately complicit in acts systematically planned and executed by the administration and in no way expunges its moral and criminal guilt for resorting to torture. Also, even the torture itself has nothing to do with the willful destruction of evidence sought by the commission, the Congress, a court, and several defendants!

You really should learn to quote better, Ted. It's difficult to differentiate between the quote and your own text.

While I also agree that those in congress who knew should also be held accountable, this doesn't excuse the destruction of evidence. There were no transcripts taken of these taped interrogations, there were no attempts to mask the faces of the interrogators. If the concern was the disclosure of interrogator identities, the destruction of the tapes was an unnecessary extreme in order to accomplish that goal.

please let's stop with this plame bull...

Her CIA cover was so deep that the deputy director of the state department was unaware and gave her up at a dinner party.



On August 29, 2006 Neil A. Lewis of The New York Times reported that Armitage was the "initial and primary source" for columnist Robert Novak's July 14, 2003 article, which named Valerie Plame as a CIA "operative" and which triggered the CIA leak investigation.[17] On August 30, 2006, CNN reported that Armitage had been confirmed "by sources" as leaking Ms. Wilson's CIA role in a "casual conversation" with Robert Novak.[18] The New York Times, quoting people "familiar with his actions", reported that Armitage was unaware of Ms. Wilson's undercover status when he spoke to Novak.[19]

^ Lewis, Neil A.. "First Source of C.I.A. Leak Admits Role, Lawyer Says", The New York Times, August 30, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ King, John, and Todd, Brian. "Sources: State Department official source of Plame leak", CNN.com, August 30, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ Johnston, David. "Leak Revelation Leaves Questions", The New York Times (final), September 2, 2006, p. A-1. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.

He was aware and why was he aware? He saw a memo on Wilson that included this information that neither he nor most of the other people who read it HAD A NEED TO KNOW!

There is no doubt Dems approved “water-boarding”, and other “enhanced interrogation methods”, because we have the film of them saying they did .

The destruction of the tapes may be protecting people who felt that may have gone to far but we will never know now. They could have been classified – although classified info has found its way to the media.

If you consider water-boarding “torture then Nancy Pelosi approved of it in 2002.


Not “moderately complicit” – completely complicit. They had the ability to just say NO and when they did not do that we cannot them blame the people who carried out their orders or used the approval to us the methods. And since the “water-boarding” was used on 2-3 high value people at most i think the issue is not of high importance esp. since our enemy has gone so far beyond anything we could imagine.

The USAF and USN both use waterboarding on our own pilots during SERE.


do you really think we would do something like that in training if it was something that did premamnent long term physical and or mental harm?

waterboarding is an interrogation technique, not torture,

no we are not jamming bamboo under their fingernails or electorcuting them,

nothing we do during interogation will cause permanent harm.

I will agree with you that waterboarding is an interrogation technique if we correct past wrongs by admitting the Khmer Rouge and other regimes/governments didn't/don't torture, and exonerate foreign soldiers we've prosecuted for using waterboarding on our own soldiers.

Sounds fair and impartial to you?

My solution is to record waterboarding interrogation sessions and run them on CSPAN. If this isn't torture, we should be able to see and hear how this works. A little daylight on this practice can't hurt, can it? Any takers?

when I teach various techniques of how to deal with out of control inmates or patients, we are taught this lesson "If you don't want it done to your kid in the same situation, don't do it yourself"

I suggest we take everyone who has a child or loved one, that says this ISN"T torture, and waterboard them, and then see if they agree it is "still not torture"- do you think GW would be so cavalier about it if it were Jenna?

Sure, I'll go along with that as long as on CSPAN-2 we show people blowing up cars in front of crowded restaurants, flying airplanes into buildings, setting bombs off in crowded train stations.... Then, we equate their actions to those of our kids and say, "Kids will be kids after all".

Aquilla

So that is the best we got Aquilla, is to compare our behavior to thiers? I mean, are we so far away from them to the point that is the best thing we got?

Edited to add- this is shaping up to be a classic cover up- CIA not cooperating with the investigation, refusing to allow a special investigator etc.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071215/ap_on_...4o8Ds4mw6dh24cA


and, in fact, now the white house is urging the judge not to push the matter:


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071215/ap_on_...0EGdQ9xHFYGw_IE

Pretty obvious that we need to waterboard some white house officials and CIA types.

I would say what you posted makes no sense but really all it is poorly crafted guile and subterfuge really over the reality at hand. So the CIA is going about destroying evidence, that is so nice and I am sure it would only help solidify America into handing over its kids as you would put it to this much needed war because after all if we don’t win in Iraq for some reason terrorism will win if that makes any sense to anyone at all. Yes if we don’t act against terrorism that surely will be something bad right, this however does not denote any particular way or only way really to go about such. Bush choose a certain path and holds to it, most everyone, or at least sane people I would say object to the reality of bush but hey that’s why we have term limits.

I must honestly say in all regards that I could have done a far better job in every way, and yes I honestly believe this. Then again when you get to go through life on some pseudo affirmative action plan failure and other people probably don’t matter all to much because daddy says I don’t have to go to Vietnam! I am so glad I don’t support the bad guys. Yes, you can equate that all you want also I am sure your sets of infinite wisdom will point out my shortcomings in not agreeing to this as being sound governmental policy. I would really like to highlight though that you don’t have a bunch of background noise to get confused with, its all pretty much been bad governmental policy.

It’s a new saying, the rich get richer and the poor get buried.

There was one taker here. He videotaped the incident so you can see how it "works".

So, if I'm understanding some posters in this thread, as long as it doesn't cause permanent damage, it's not torture.

If we end up in a shooting war with Iran - or, if you don't belive that will happen, the next country we go to war with - it will be acceptable that our troops be subjected to these interrogation techniques?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that none of you "enhanced interrogation techniques" supporters have the courage to tell DTOM to his face (or here in print) that you have no problem with him being subjected to these techniques as long as our enemies think it may save some of their lives. After all, subjectively speaking, they have a right to get information they need just like us.

So, if waterboarding is acceptable, what else is? What can our enemies do to our military women that get captured as long as it doesn't cause permanent damage?

My point is, I don't know how we can demand our enemies treat our people who have been captured with respect and dignity when we don't do it ourselves.

If DTOM gets captured, is waterboarding him, depriving him of sleep, and subjecting him to extreme temperatures part of his job description?

The Khamier Rouge et al used techniques far and above this .

as for waterboarding

I have been subjected to it myself , is it a fun time hell no it sucks you think you are going to drown.

do i put it on the same scale as say shoving bamboo under fingernails or vivisection. ( ie real torture techniques) no

If you disagree with it close down every military SERE school right now.






To put not to fine a point on it

Yes,

every soldier knows what can happen to them if they are captured, why do you think we subject our people to the things we do during SERE

Survial
Evasion
RESISTANCE
Escape

learn it

live it

love it



May I ask a question in return?

how are we to get the information if we cannot get rough with the enemy,

I am certain you would as well consider physical intimidation to be torture?

maybe if we ask real nicely and give them a muffin and a mochachino they will come around ??? huh? maybee?

no? darn.

Okay, just about anyone in aviation has been to sere school. So what. It is training- it ain't the real thing, and can't even pretend to be. It is like ranger school when they make you eat the raw rabbit- seems like you are just having to survive at the time, you choke down the eyeball and other sundry items. But when you are surviving, that rabbit is tasty- NOT an icky exercise.



Any interogator will tell you torture/waterboarding does not give you good intell- because the person will tell you anything to make it all better- I believe you learned THAT in sere school as well- yes?

the "we need it to get information from the enemy" crap is just that- crap. It is a non-starter. There is no situation where torture will work to some positive outcome. You still have to follow up the leads slowly, and make sure the torture-ee is not just telling you what you want to hear just to make the pain go away. It will take just as long to folow up false leads as it will to get good intel the non-saddam way.

Once again, why was saddam such a bad guy if you think it is okay when we do the same thing?

Murder, rape, torture, genocide, these were things we said that made Saddam a monster. Is it suddenly okay when we do it?

I don't buy the "there is no permenant harm" crap anymore than the rest of it- there are lots of ways to torture some one that will not cause permenant physical harm, or is that your only definition?

Torture techniques simply became more sophisticated instead of the old billy club to the kidneys- it doesn't make it less like torture, it just means the tortured subject lives longer- that is all.

and the Academy Award for best overdramatization goes to.......



The schools are to give an idea of what you may encounter to help try and give the soldiers and edge or a chance.
They are also trying to show what a soldier may encounter in the hands of evil men and regimes. Sorry Guardian you may be willing to sully and cheapen the meaning of America and help justify future torture of our own soldiers because an enemy can claim the same morality and necessity for "security reasons" using our own words and actions as examples but Americans are not.

Torture of any sort is wrong. Even the people who run the schools don't think its right

from Malcolm Nance former master instructor and chief of training at the U.S. Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego






as a side note Guardian people who support torture are NOT Libertarians, they are Republicans.

Once again we get the age old, time worn, and complete crap "moral equivalence" argument from the Bush haters. Like waterboarding someone for 30 seconds is the same "bad thing" as cutting off their head and uploading the video to the Internet. That's what the enemy does, even to non-combatants. We don't. But no, let's just beat up on the US because we elected Bush as President instead of some lying son of a female dog who stabbed his fellow soldiers in the back by lying about them in front of Congress. As far as whether waterboarding works or not, John Kiriakou, disagrees with you CR. I realize he's not the expert you are and maybe he treats his kids harshly since that's how you'd interrogate one of these cretin terrorists, maybe send them to bed without their dessert? According to him, waterboarding worked. He says it's torture, and he's a self-professed Democrat, but the fact of the matter it worked. From the linked article.....



and....




30 seconds of waterboarding - 1 gallon of water
Information obtained - Priceless

And as far as DR's contention that we place our own troops at higher risk if we use extreme interrogation techniques in highly selective cases, that's complete garbage. Talk to any former POW from Vietnam and ask them how they were treated. You think Al Qeada is going to hurt our people more because of water boarding? How the hell could they do that? Use a dull knife to cut off their head? Puleeze.... This moral equivalency argument is complete crap. There is no moral equivalency with terrorists. Here's the menu for what we feed the captives at Club GITMO. Do you honestly think the enemy would treat our people this way? Hell, those folks are are eating better than our soldiers in the field are!


Aquilla

Gee Aquilla, and everyone KNOWS CIA agents don't lie

IN fact there is a good way to tell when they are lying - their lips are moving.

Rendition, false imprisonment of the innocent, torture, "faulty intel", "slam dunk", 650k dead in Iraq, millions of refugees,

ya, I wonder if anyone in the CIA has anything to lose by straight up lying about it?

With friends like these, who needs enemas?

And your John Kerry crack? He is more honorable than anyone you mentioned here, and that is a straight up fact.

Seriously Aquilla, how in the world do you believe anything that comes out of thier mouth?

Of course, if it were such a harmless little college prank/hazing style incident- why even destroy the tapes? WE all know you can blur faces and whatnot- to protect identities-

if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck- it is a coverup.

Pure and simple as that.

What we need to do is withold the entire CIAs budget, no paychecks for anyone, take away all pensions, freeze all assets, until we get to the bottom of that very, very corrupt organization, and someone comes clean, with unimpeachable third party verification.

I suggest Jimmy Carter

That org needs a throrough purging until we can regain our honor here and abroad.

If you believe waterboarding to be torture and morally wrong stop the practice we use against our own people in training.

maybe you missed the point where I told you that i had gone through that training myself in the 90's

because I disagree with you I am not american ? who gave you that right ?

Where is your SWASM? I have a couple of them from my time in the USAF and 2 Presidential Unit Citations as well
I have fought and sacrificed for this country how dare you say such a thing to me.


Maybe if we be nice to them they will return the favor ....

let's ask Dan Pearl. http://www.libertyunites.us/video_daniel_p..._video-425.html

our enemy wants all of us dead. sorry survival says one of us will lose and for my childrens sake it must be them






you and I will have to agree to disagree.... I believe in freedom and liberty, I will not submit to a theocratic dictatorship.

Does that make me any less of a libertine? I have several choice words for you but none that I can give without a strike against me , so for decorums sake I will hold my tongue.

Thanks for the link, Mrs P. I watched the video and it made me very uncomfortable. I realize that this is only simulated waterboarding. Even so, the waterboard-ee felt like he was going to drown...literally. I can only imagine what a truly hostile interrogation might feel like.

Let's shine some light on this practice. Have the court of public opinion decide whether or not this is in fact torture. If it isn't torture, then the proponents for this practice have nothing to fear, right?

The difference between me and you, is you believe in military intelligence. I don't believe those two words should ever exist in the same sentence. And that's pretty strange coming from someone who supposedly was in the service. When I served, that term was considered an oxymoron.

If I'm Jack Bauer in a "WE"RE OUT OF TIME!!!!!" scenario and have someone in front of me that knows where a nuke is going off, I might use techniques that are crimes against nature. And I would be willing to go to jail for it. Although, that would be a pretty tough prosecution to make. "Your honor, DaytonRocker saved a million lives by cutting off Habib's testicles and feeding them to his ferret". If true, nobody would prosecute that if it can be proven it saved lives. But if I'm willing to die for my country, I'm willing to go to jail for it. Where's your proof torture has saved lives? The word from the same people who said Iraq had WMD and links to Al Qaida? The same people that said we needed to bomb Iran because of an imminent threat? Why do you believe these people are in fact, terrorists and/or have information that could save lives? Because a seemingly righteous individual says so and you can just take his word for it? If elected president, will you give Hillary Clinton that wide of latitude?

You (and many others like you) trust our military and government to be honest, competent, and smart enough enforce this policy correctly. You believe that our government does not need oversight to prosecute people that have no legal recourse available to them. You believe our government should be trusted to withhold evidence from people it detains while we just "take their word for it". I expect these ideals from liberals - they make no apologies for wanting more government in our lives. But it seems absurd coming from people who call themselves conservatives.

The "battlefield" in Bush's version of the GWOT is every square inch of the planet. So, the people you place so much trust into can detain anyone they claim to be a terrorist and send them to Syria for rendition for whatever interrogation techniques they choose without oversight or consequence. That is the fundamental difference between pro-torture people (that would be you) and me (an anti-torture person). It's not that we differ on the importance of saving lives. You trust our government - I don't. It amazes me how conservatives rip into me associating me with liberals while allowing government more power without oversight. It's like I'm in some alternate universe. Hell, the republicans would take someone who is pro-choice, for more taxes, against tax cuts, and for socialist domestic policies (yes, I'm looking at you Lieberman) because he thinks nation-building and torture is ok.

Now, I get the expected "our enemies don't care about our torture techniques because they behead people" as if they can't see two feet in front of them. One, that makes us no better than them. Two, there will be new wars. Three, we can't be subjective in our enforcement of international agreements as if we can be an exception whever we feel the need.

From your posts, I get the idea that you think we should get rid of the Geneva conventions because nobody else abides by them anyhow. For all the talk about wanting to bomb Iraq and Iran back to the stone ages, it looks like we are the ones already there.

No torture of any kind should be allowed or tolerated. If an individual decides it's necessary in extreme circumstances, he should do that on his own. It should not be sanctioned by an incompetent government.

Well, if you "expected it", you should be able to address it. Do you consider a 30 second waterboarding to be the moral equivalent of a beheading?

Aquilla

Aquilla, I think it is fairly ironic that you are accusing others of employing 'moral equivalence'. When I think of individuals justifying torture, [which, by definition, water-boarding is], I think of the same term, moral equivalence. What in the world happened to the black and white world that the current Administration and its supporters claim we live in. Since when are there degrees of good torture and bad torture? Where is the line between acceptable torture and unacceptable torture? Who draws that line?

As for the topic at hand, it appears to be quite obviously a cover-up; a textbook cover-up, I might add, very nicely done. What I dislike most about this administration and the pervasive ideology therein is its distaste for transparency, this is jut another symptom of that condition.

CP

CP
? Do you equate beheading with waterboarding? That sounds pretty black and white to me. Maybe you're just misinformed..... Tell you what, let me share a couple of videos with you and see what you think.
Here's waterboarding... Steve Harrigan of FOX News went through it to show us what it entails. Now, I realize to many here the fact that Harrigan works for FOX makes him more evil than terrorists who blow up innocent men, women and children probably makes this video okay to watch without a disclaimer......

This one on the other hand requires a disclaimer and a warning. It is the video produced by our enemy of the beheading of Eugene Armstrong at their hands. It is graphic in detail and I DARE anyone to watch this and explain to me how this isn't "any worse" than what happened in the first video to Steve Harrigan.


I watched the entire Harrigan piece, I couldn't stomach the entire second video. Tell me they are one and the same.


Aquilla

1. Was the destruction of these tapes a coverup or necessary because they posed a serious security risk to CIA officials and their families?
2. If you believe this was a coverup, who was responsible and who should be held accountable?
3. If you beleive this was due to security risks, is this the way his matter should have been resolved?


All I know about this is the following:

It's screwed up any story that has a scene of the bad guys torturing the good guys. Everybody tortures everybody else.

I hate water, and drowning is one of the ways I do not want to check out of this hotel. Nuclear blast would be good, ground zero. I'll probably end up choking on a word, maybe fatal finger cramps or something.

A severed head can tell no lies. Or truths. Or really anything. That's a stupid way of torturing. In fact there is a story somewhere (I forget just where) that the good guy convinces the bad guys to cut his head off in order to avoid torture.

The guillotine was invented as a more humane way of execution than hanging or the dull ax. It also has more crowd appeal.

People will say anything to avoid pain. There's no point to it, other than to produce an illusion of interrogation for the upper ups who sign the paycheck. I guess the voters too, huh? Also it appeals to people's sadistic sides. Revenge could be a part of it as well.

So our fellow human beings can be nuts and do torture just for grins. The lesson here is to never, ever get nabbed by these types. That is the only deterrent to terrorism, which is a form of terrorism in itself. Fighting fire with fire. Becoming one with the enemy. Walking in fear constantly.

Be careful what you say and do, or simulated drowning could be in your future. Nobody will hear your screams.

So minus one for good guy/bad guy stories. Plus one for Poe-like horror.

The CIA destroyed tapes for a reason. There's probably something really bad that happened. I'm thinking the worse possible scenario with bodily fluids flying everywhere, a bunch of screaming and barking, a blackout and silence. Every time evidence is destroyed, I think it's to cover up something really bad. Comes naturally.

You are comparing torture with an execution. Why would someone who has been on this board for years and knows difference between apples and oranges do that, is beyond me.
Now, if we can find a video of Saddam's goons torturing people in 1980s Baghdad or something similar, that would be valid comparison. But at the very least, they never pretended to be a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere ®.
Or let's take a walk through the halls of Tower of London and see how much we evolved since. No more racks and Iron Maidens! We can now torture people without breaking every bone in their body!

Beheading a person is murder. That has nothing to do with torture, so I fail to see your point. If this is your analogy for moral equivalence, then you may have a point. Yes, we are better than them. They behead our guys. We only torture theirs. Our next enemy may use your point: We may torture your guys we have captured, rape your women we capture, but hey - they still have their heads attached!

What makes you think our next enemies will not attempt to skirt the letter of the law with a Clintonesque "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is" when Bush is doing the same thing? How can we claim to not tolerate the mistreatment of our people captured as enemy combatants when we are just as guilty? Do we justify these actions because we have a better reason? Because our lives are more valuable than the value our enemies place on their people?

Yes, 30 seconds of anything that inflicts severe pain or trauma is torture. 30 seconds of rape is torture in my opinion and the last time I checked, that is no permanent damage associated with rape.

The reason we are talking past each other on this is pretty simple: Most of us agree that in a Jack Bauer type situation, we need to use all tools at our disposal to save lives. The difference is, you trust our government to do this without oversight or consequence and assume a requisite amount of competence. You have no problem leaving this up to an officer in the military who took zoology in college and is in a leadership position because he presses his uniforms better, shines his shoes better, and kisses butt better. The reality is, is our government only gets bigger and more powerful while getting less transparent under the guise of national security. I'm a conservative republican because I believe our government sucks at everything they do and needs to be smaller.

And lastly, I have the intellectual honesty and a record of consistency to say that I would be holding a new Clinton administration to the same standard. If/when a democrat gets elected president, she can count on the support of half the republican base to do whatever she feels necessary without oversight or consequence in the name of national security. That is, as long as you truly believe what you say now.

While I appreciate the righteous indignation, I think I'll cut to the chase and focus on substance. Waterboarding and beheading are the same in one way and one way only. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SHOULD DO NEITHER. How simple is that? If X = torture then we should not do X. X = waterboarding and waterboarding = torture, therefore the United States should not waterboard. Of course waterboarding is physically less painful and less harmful that beheading. MOST THINGS ARE. That doesn't mean the United States government should be in the business of doing those things.

My point is painfully clear and has nothing to do with beheadings or any other brutal form of 'punishment' that our enemies have used against us. It is simply, the United States should not [and legally cannot] torture.

Period.

CP

No, I compare it to execution- which we do too, so what is the big deal here? Oh yeah, we call it "collateral damage"- correct? Not to mention the executions here in the US.

Oh yeah, and what happened to that poor canadian dude we commited "rendition" against to be as bad as the beheading vid- we just didn't get electoshock to the genitals on youtube I guess.

It's not an apples oranges comparison at all. It's all about behavior. Some in this thread have equated our "bad behavior" with that of our enemy and claimed "we are no better than they are." Their argument goes something like the following......

waterboarding = bad US
beheading = bad enemy

bad=bad ie. we are no better than they are.

That's the moral equivalence argument and it's a black and white argument. Bad = bad without regard to the degree. My argument is that it's not black and white at all, but rather shades of gray. If circumstances are as DR alludes to in the post following this one and we have a "Jack Bauer" situation, my argument is that waterboarding a person for 30 seconds in order to prevent an attack that will kill thousands of people may be a reasonable thing to do and justified under the circumstances. On the other hand, I can think of no situation or circumstance where cutting off someone's head and posting a video of that on the Internet is justifiable. There is no moral equivalence there, none at all.

Now, on to DR's post - we may not be as far apart as I thought on this one.......



On the surface, this appears to be a reasonable argument, but does it have a basis in reality for what really happens based on history? It didn't work that way in World War II, particularly in the Pacific Theater of that war. It didn't work that way in Vietnam. And it certainly hasn't worked that way in Iraq or Afghanistan. Look at the menu I posted for the detainees at GITMO and ask whether our people (even non-combatants) have been treated the same way. Obviously the answer to that is no.



THere was oversight in this case. According to this article in the Washington Post, members of Congress including Nancy Pelosi were briefed on extraordinary interrogation techniques employed by the CIA in 2002. From that article......

I

There's your oversight. Congress knew about waterboarding in 2002. They understood the context and reasons for it, and understood the results obtained by employing it. Now, perhaps you don't trust their judgement and that's a valid point, but we elected them, and they're the only government we've got. Maybe it's no the best system, but it beats the hell out of pretty much any other form of government I can think of.



If Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama become the next President of the United States (shudder), then I will expect them to behave in a manner consistent with the law by briefing members of Congress on classified programs and interrogation techniques the US is employing in the WOT. The same way the Bush administration has done. If they do that, I'm okay with it. I may not like them being President, but they will be the only President I've got.

Aquilla

Torture isn't ok because the democrats agreed to it - it's torture and if they agreed to this, they should ALL go to jail.

The topic isn't about republican torture - it's about torture and the ensuing coverup. Why destroy the evidence if the behavior is lawful? You can't claim it was to protect the identities of covert agents unless you are ready to destroy every document that exists with the same type of information.

If Bush ordered this, he should go to prison. If Pelosi, the Pope, or Jesus Christ Himself were part of the authorization process, they should all be frog marched too. Treating our prisoners worse than we would expect our enemies to treat theirs is unacceptable no matter what. It's a simple matter of principle and common decency.

And to date there is no one saying the “water-boarding” approved by Dems and Repubs alike is “torture” and all seem to agree that high value prisoners with critical info can and should be interrogated aggressively.

As for our enemies we have yet to have one I can think of that has even come close to out scruples in this matter. Certainly the animals we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan don’t consider how we treat their captives as they butcher, torture and mutilate our soldiers and innocent women and children.

Ted- LOTS of poeple are calling it torture- it is just a silly, really stupid, denial for those that support torture in reality, and they are just like racists that "don't really hate blacks, but they just don't want to live with them"- they are just foolin' no one- they hate blacks, just like those that support torture are no different and no better than hitler, stalin, Pol Pot or Saddam- they have the same moral justifications, just different ideas on who deserves it- that is all.

All those that were tortures and mass murderers needed support from somebody, lots of somebodies, that agree with what they did. They weren't all poeple in power, they were grass roots citizens too that agreed and believed in what was happening. Because it was always to "those poeple" that deserve it, for whatever reason that they rationalize. Usually- it is for the same reason you claim "national security".

Anyone that supports waterboarding and torture, no matter how you wish to rationalize it, are the same poeple that looked the other way and rationalized the elimination of the Jews, communists, the anti-revolutionaries, the enemies of the state, of any other regime in history.

Torture and waterboarding types NEED those poeple, because it is simply not possible without some sort of support by the population.

If LOTS of people thought it was “torture” then explain why people from both parties including your girl Nancy P thought it was not. Maybe, just maybe they know a hell of a lot more about it than you do sir.

So your usual – we are stupid to disagree with you sounds a little hollow right now CR.

Like DR said- if Nancy is on board with torture- I don't have any problem throwing her in jail right along side GW.

And yes, to call something that is clearly torture something else other than torture, is either an outright lie (like oh, a democrat or republican politician might do? ) or just plain stupid. There is no third alternative. Most likely, folks like you are like those folks that okayed torture that thier leaders commited- just like the grassroots poeple that support Al-Quaida in thier countries. Al-Quaida can't operate without a fairly large portion of the population they live in approval- just like GW and Nancy can't have torture without YOUR approval- she certainly doesn't have mine- and just like Hitler needed grass roots population to kill and torture- not the majority mind you, just a large enough amount to keep them and thier jack booted thugs in power.

You are in good company there Ted.

then please good sir give us a list of things that might be appropriate.

making them pet puppies for a 1/2 hour maximum ? is that torture given the known inate fear of dogs that is cultural in the middle east?

forcing them to to watch paulie shore movies?


Maybe we should just disband all intel gathering operations worldwide, that really seems to be what you would like .
what is really so hard to grasp here?

we need the information to fight the jihadis, those we capture who are members of al-quida are interrogated to get that info.

we dont use these techniques on everyone they are reserved for the most valuable and extreme targets , the guy in question on this tape was a high ranking al-q member .

do i think we should be using this on everyone , no, do I think we should get rid of it altogether . hell no it is effective , and far less brutal than say .... electrocution, and jamming bamboo under the fingernails. and then there is always the russian fave of splitting people open while hopped up on drugs to make the pain and whole ride even more intense.

Personally, the method I'd most favor would be to play an endless loop of a medley of Britney Spears and Madonna songs. After about the 40th time I heard Material Girl, I'd be begging them to forget the board and just drown me for real.


Aquilla

People who support tortur... erm, "aggressive interrogation techniqies" (yes, that's what they called it in 1606 as well when they were interrogating Guy Fawkes) are, by overwhelming majority, call themselves conservative (mostly Republicans).

People who like to talk about their faith and their Christianity, and how the traditional Christian fiber of American society is under assault from "wacklibs" and evil Liberal Media® are, by and large, Conservative Republicans as well.

I am convinced that not every Christian Republican supports torture. I just wonder how those who do, how do they jive it with their (apparently, very flexible) belief system.

I find it interesting on this board as well- those that consider this a "christian" country and call themselves "conservatives" are the first ones to be okay with torture- I also find it interesting- GA mentioned "russia"- you may take note that English horn is a Russian immigrint there GA- and I have been there a couple three times now- we know the mentality it takes for a population to support torture- and it is found in conservative and religious extremism-

you DON"T need to torture to get information- several poeple have made this in the past- Loreng, Mustang, others that have actually served in psy ops, and myself, that has worked with profile teams looking for really, really bad guys. Modern science is a good replacement for lazy old school techniques.

You are NOT going to get good intell any faster by torture than accepted "harsh" techniques, such as isolation techniques that are constitutionally allowed to this day.

But like I said- those that support it- those are the kinds of poeple that the Saddams, Hitlers and Stalins relied on- and they have no place in a free society. Those that support it are no different than those that supported Hitler, Stalin and Saddam. Not one whit of difference whatsoever.