Opposition To Terror Trial Strong Among Dems, Independents, Young
Below we wondered whether opposition to trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York is primarily driven by opposition among older and Republican voters. That seems to be the case among New Yorkers. What about nationally?
Turns out it isn’t. In fact, opposition is strong across party and age lines.
I asked CNN for an age and party breakdown of their latest poll on this question, which found that two-thirds overall oppose trying KSM and his co-conspirators in a New York court, rather than a military commission. The results:
* Dems prefer a military court 54%-43%. While that’s far less than the 79% of Republicans who prefer a military commission, that’s still a majority of Dems.
* Independents prefer a military court, 62%-36%.
* Those under 50 prefer a military court, 63%-35%, virtually identical to the 65% of those over 50 who feel the same way.
Nationally, opposition is strikingly uniform across the board. Which underscores again how politically difficult the route the Obama administration chose really is.
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thanks.
you just won an argument for sbj.
Sorry, Tena.
Thanks for this post, Greg. A little perspective. Do these results “suggest” anything to you about young Democrats? Are they “afraid” of this trial?
O’er the land of raw Fear,
And the home of the Knave.
Once a nation loses it’s courage and fortitude, it has surrendered to the enemy.
Sorry – I don’t want to be seen as gloating. Being “old,” white, conservative, and unafraid that other post hit a nerve.
“Do these results “suggest” anything to you about young Democrats?”
It suggests they are informed and aren’t as susceptible to hype and propaganda.
Again…none of this will matter after he’s convicted and executed.
Hey…I can even tell you more about the future! Once he’s convicted and executed, even though it will be on evidence NOT gotten from torture, conservative torture-apologists will claim that the “harsh interrogations” were effective because it was done to him – and look he was found guitly!
You watch. I called it here first.
We already know that the harsh interrogations were effective.
Harsh interrogation is not designed to produce evidence for use in court – it is designed to produce intelligence.
And in my book sbj harsh interrogation is also illegal no matter what anyone claims otherwise.
“We already know that the harsh interrogations were effective.”
Now you’re just saying stuff. *yawn*
“And in my book sbj harsh interrogation is also illegal no matter what anyone claims otherwise.”
You stick with that, no matter what the actual facts or laws are.
Harsh interrogation is not designed to produce evidence for use in court – it is designed to produce intelligence.
This is the right’s fevered fantasy, fed by **** like 24.
The reality, born out by centuries of data, is that torture has only a very few purposes, none of them having to do with producing reliable information.
c*r*a*p
If waterboarding had worked, then where are the results. Bin Laden and his top aide are still running free. We are still bogged down in Afghanistan, with the place getting worse by the day.
Only brainwashed Morons like SBJ swallow the Bullshite, that torture got us a bonanza of operable intel.
Reality Check:
The whole world saw KSM being rolled out of bed, with his hair in all directions, when he was captured by Pakistani forces. Keep that in mind. The USA did not capture him. Pakistan did.
Now, use your brains for a moment. Once KSM was shown to have been captured, how long do you think it took his Leaders to call off, and change all plans, and move all key assets. That would have happened as soon as KSM was captured, and long before he was waterboarded, so all those claims about how torture got us a treasure trove of actionable intel. is just a load of horse manure.
Notice how they never tell us what that intel was, and what they did with it. Of course they will claim it is because of national security. Like The Church Lady said; How Convenient.
It is a crock. They got nothing worthwhile out of KSM, because he did not lead us to the links that led us to Bin Laden, and Al-Qaeda would have taken all their assets, which KSM knew of, underground, as soon as he was captured. By the time he was waterboarded, he had nothing worth a damn to give up.
Question for QB, SBJ:
Do you think the combined efforts of prosecutors at DoJ AND the Pentagon got this wrong?
qb doesn’t know the law. “He” makes it up and then screams invective at anyone who contradicts “his” fantasies.
qb is as reliable a guide to the end of the rule of law as a waterfall is to the direction down.
What these poll results reveal is:
Bush/Cheney have fear mongered long enough to turn America into a nation of trembling cowards, who are now afraid of their own shadows.
O’er The Land Of Raw Fear,
And The Home Of The Knave.
Now the French can turn the tables, and start calling Americans; “Surrender Monkeys”.
France, England, Germany and Spain are not Afraid. They try Terrorists in their court systems. Bush/Cheney have succeeded in making Americans into a nation of bed wetting cowards.
“Again…none of this will matter after he’s convicted and executed.
”
You got that.
The only thing that drives this is the fear that he will get a fair trial.
He will, but it doesn’t matter because the evidence is strong and he’s going to fry regardless of where they try him.
That seems to be the case among New Yorkers. What about nationally?
Turns out it isn’t. In fact, opposition is strong across party and age lines.
Which in turn suggests that in New York those with busy lives have moved on, as will the rest of us once those who can be convicted in a proper court of law have been convicted. It will give everyone else the chance to witness the proceedings, in public, so that they can process the whole thing and get on with life.
Without that, the right’s fearmongers will always have an audience.
The only thing that drives this is the fear that he will get a fair trial.
Convicted on evidence obtained before he was tortured, and thus proving not only the ineffectiveness of torture, but the active harm it does to us & our government.
Once again, “public” opinion must not and will not matter a whit in this case. This kinda vigilante justice from the joe on the street is dangerous to any country.
And I applaud the AG (and the Prez) for doing this despite this – “which underscores again how politically difficult the route the Obama administration “.
Ummmm…the CNN questions doesn’t address NY at all while the Marist questions does.
The Marist question asked specifically if this trial should be held in NY.
The CNN focused on it being a Military of Civilian trial.
CNN Question:
If you had to choose, would you rather see Khalid Sheik Mohammed brought to trial in a criminal court run by the civilian judicial system, or would you rather see him tried by a military court run by the U.S.
armed forces?
See, nothing about New York.
Marist Question:
Five alleged 9/11 attackers of the World Trade Center will be tried in federal court. Do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea to have this trial located in New York City?
Here, New York is in the question specifically.
I’d say this still proves older people in NY don’t want the trial held in NYC.
So, my opinion still stands.
“France, England, Germany and Spain are not Afraid. They try Terrorists in their court systems. ”
O Liam now you’ve done it you Socialist. You Euro-commie. Americans aren’t supposed to like Europe.
In other words, these are two different questions trying to get at two different narratives.
One, the Marist, focuses on trial in NYC, the CNN, focuses on Military vs. Civilian trial.
@oddjob: “Which brings us to the next of the justifications for disclosing and thus abandoning these measures: that they don’t work anyway, and that those who are subjected to them will simply make up information in order to end their ordeal. This ignorant view of how interrogations are conducted is belied by both experience and common sense. If coercive interrogation had been administered to obtain confessions, one might understand the argument. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who organized the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, among others, and who has boasted of having beheaded Daniel Pearl, could eventually have felt pressed to provide a false confession. But confessions aren’t the point. Intelligence is. Interrogation is conducted by using such obvious approaches as asking questions whose correct answers are already known and only when truthful information is provided proceeding to what may not be known. Moreover, intelligence can be verified, correlated and used to get information from other detainees, and has been; none of this information is used in isolation.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993446103128041.html
No matter what sbj says, it still doesn’t negate Shadegg’s egregious Repuglican fear mongering.
“Bush/Cheney have succeeded in making Americans into a nation of bed wetting cowards.”
you betcha.
“Intelligence is. Interrogation is conducted by using such obvious approaches as asking questions whose correct answers are already known and only when truthful information is provided proceeding to what may not be known. Moreover, intelligence can be verified, correlated and used to get information from other detainees, and has been; none of this information is used in isolation.””
If you are going to start defending torture again, sbj – beware. You lose every shred of moral standing you may posses with this.
for liam (same cite as above): “The terrorist Abu Zubaydah (sometimes derided as a low-level operative of questionable reliability, but who was in fact close to KSM and other senior al Qaeda leaders) disclosed some information voluntarily. But he was coerced into disclosing information that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al Shibh, another of the planners of Sept. 11, who in turn disclosed information which — when combined with what was learned from Abu Zubaydah — helped lead to the capture of KSM and other senior terrorists, and the disruption of follow-on plots aimed at both Europe and the U.S. Details of these successes, and the methods used to obtain them, were disclosed repeatedly in more than 30 congressional briefings and hearings beginning in 2002, and open to all members of the Intelligence Committees of both Houses of Congress beginning in September 2006. Any protestation of ignorance of those details, particularly by members of those committees, is pretense.
The techniques themselves were used selectively against only a small number of hard-core prisoners who successfully resisted other forms of interrogation, and then only with the explicit authorization of the director of the CIA. Of the thousands of unlawful combatants captured by the U.S., fewer than 100 were detained and questioned in the CIA program. Of those, fewer than one-third were subjected to any of the techniques discussed in these opinions. As already disclosed by Director Hayden, as late as 2006, even with the growing success of other intelligence tools, fully half of the government’s knowledge about the structure and activities of al Qaeda came from those interrogations.”
SBJ:
Do you think the combined efforts of prosecutors at DoJ AND the Pentagon got this wrong?
“What about nationally?
Turns out it isn’t. In fact, opposition is strong across party and age lines.”
We don’t know nationally Greg because as I stated, CNN didn’t specify a trial in NYC.
“Convicted on evidence obtained before he was tortured, and thus proving not only the ineffectiveness of torture, but the active harm it does to us & our government.”
It beggars description how illogical and tangled up in error that statment is. Let’s look at a couple reasons.
1. First, EIT was not used to get trial evidence but intelligence information, and it was incredibly effective in achieving that goal.
2. Second, let’s suppose he is in fact convicted (of what? you probably don’t even know what he is charged with) based on “pre-torture” evidence. That would prove NOTHING about the effectivness of “torture” in obtaining information. See 1.
3. Third, again, suppose he is convicted as you say. That would prove NOTHING about “harm” to us or the government from “torturing” KSM or anyone else. See 1.
Your argument is utterly illogical.
“If you are going to start defending torture again, sbj – beware.”
I’m not defending torture, tena – trying to explain, via Hayden and Mukasey, why the results of CIA interrogation are not intended for use in civil court to obtain convictions.
A good answer sbj,because all you have to do is read QB and ask yourself if that’s what you want to be associated with.
Bin Laden is still roaming scott free, and the Taliban are resurgent in Afghanistan.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and not in chewing on the string.
The Taliban have become very proficient at killing our Troops with IED attacks.
So much for all the Bush/Cheney Horse Manure about what a great success their waterboarding of KSM was.
Any reason you’re not answering my question SBJ?
“War-torn nations remain the world’s most corrupt, Transparency International (TI) has said.
Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia are the lowest-ranked countries in TI’s annual global survey. They were all at the bottom of the list last year as well.
“When essential institutions are weak or non-existent, corruption spirals out of control,” TI said.
New Zealand was the least corrupt, with last year’s winner Denmark as runner-up and Singapore third.
It said this was a result of “political stability, long established conflict of interest regulations and solid, functioning public institutions”.
The issue of corruption in Afghanistan is particularly pressing. Widespread fraud marred the country’s last elections, while the US is still debating whether to increase troop levels.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/business/8363599.stm
torture is great for one thing: causing suffering for the sake of causing suffering.
And that’s all it’s good for.
“New Zealand was the least corrupt, with last year’s winner Denmark as runner-up and Singapore third. ”
I’ll take a pass on Singapore’s idea of keeping people in line. YOu can’t chew gum on the street in Singapore.
“If you are going to start defending torture again, sbj – beware. You lose every shred of moral standing you may posses with this.”
You are not the “decider” of who has moral standing.
You also apparently are unable to deal with complexity, or distinguish between questions of efficacy and morality.
It isn’t debatable that EIT produced large amounts intelligence information and very important intelligence information that routine questioning didn’t produce. If you want to argue that this is irrelevant, bully for you.
“Any reason you’re not answering my question SBJ?”
Well, there are a few but most prominent is your unwillingness to engage in an honest manner. You also seem immune to reason. I have no problem disagreeing with people – but you comes across as a bit deranged and perhaps dangerous.
“And in my book sbj harsh interrogation is also illegal no matter what anyone claims otherwise.”
The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter if it is the most effective goddamn intelligence gathering tool ever = it’s illegal it’s immoral it’s unAmerican.
“a bit deranged and perhaps dangerous.”
that was one of the most dishonest, stupidest things I’ve seen you post yet and that’s saying something.
OK. I had a message get eaten.
Quarterbrain is one of those Sadistic types who supports torture, because he is a the type of psychopath that would feel at home in any totalitarian regime.
Senate Defeats Inhofe Amendment On Gitmo Detainee Transfer
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/senate-defeats-inhofe-amendment-on-gitmo-detainee-transfer.php
Good news.
“So much for all the Bush/Cheney Horse Manure about what a great success their waterboarding of KSM was.”
What an absurd argument. But let’s just mark it down now that Obama will be held to the same standard — as long as there is still Islamo-terrorism and tyrrany remains unextinguished, Obama will be a failure.
Btw, I’d love to see your pictures of OBL roaming Scot free.
“You also apparently are unable to deal with complexity, or distinguish between questions of efficacy and morality. ”
Yes I am the decider on whether or not torture is moral. And this statement about me makes no sense. What are you talking about efficacy and morality? There is no efficacy when it comes to morality – if something is wrong it’s wrong. Life is not the goddamn TV show 24 Hours.
“Well, there are a few but most prominent is your unwillingness to engage in an honest manner. You also seem immune to reason. I have no problem disagreeing with people – but you comes across as a bit deranged and perhaps dangerous.”
Funny, you didn’t feel that way at 1:33pm today when you responded with another textbook SBJ non-answer (talk about not being willing to engage honestly).
Hmm, what was it that made you feel that way all of a sudden?
Hmmm.
The only thing I can find that happened between now and then was the fact that I asked you this question:
Do you think the combined efforts of prosecutors at DoJ AND the Pentagon got this wrong?
I don’t see what’s so dishonest about that.
I am just asking you a fair question with a Yes or No answer.
Can you find it in your heart to reply to my simple, basic question?
mike – good news indeed. From that TPM piece
“All 40 Republicans were joined by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Sens. Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln, both Democrats from Arkansas.
Earlier today VoteVets.org chairman Jon Soltz, an Iraq war veteran, called Inhofe a hypocrite:
“Nearly 200 terrorists were tried and convicted in U.S. courts, most notably Zacharias Moussavi who was brought to the U.S. by President George W. Bush. All the while, Senator Inhofe was quiet. Playing politics with security like this is a disgrace.”
Soltz added that “true conservatives” Bob Barr, Davide Keene and Grover Norquist (who support moving the detainees to the U.S.) are “on our side.”
Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) charged the measure “put political interests ahead of our national interests” and ultimately is trying to keep the detention center open.”
1. First, EIT was not used to get trial evidence but intelligence information, and it was incredibly effective in achieving that goal.
An assertion based upon exactly nothing but the public statements of Dick Cheney, a man whose statements are almost always wrong, except when they’re lies.
Yay! That is good news! Finally -
And an argument coming from someone who thinks Sarah Palin is the real deal is an argument coming from someone who makes Alice’s Wonderland look like the soul of rationality.
Now Quarterbrain thinks that Bin Laden is still not roaming free to this very day. That is all you need to know about this
Quarterbrain Dimwit!
As for those forty three cowardly bed wetting Senators; they better go crawl into an undisclosed bunker for the rest of their gutless lives, since there will always be terrorists, of one stripe or another, to contend with.
If A US Senator is that afraid of a few Rag Tag fanatics, then that Senator should be ousted, and replace with someone who has an actual backbone.
Time for the Cowardly Forty Three to be replaced by people with some personal and political courage.
Well SBJ?
I asked you extremely nicely.
“Now, use your brains for a moment. Once KSM was shown to have been captured, how long do you think it took his Leaders to call off, and change all plans, and move all key assets. That would have happened as soon as KSM was captured, and long before he was waterboarded, so all those claims about how torture got us a treasure trove of actionable intel. is just a load of horse manure.”
LOL
Oh my goodness, sometimes you folks just make this so easy. Let’s follow that train of thought, doofus.
So, you are saying that whenever bad guys know one their gang has been captured, they change all their plans, and any information we get from said bad guy is therefore no good.
Therefore, torturing said bad guy does not good, because no information we get is any good.
Now, what else can we conclude???
How about that capturing bad guys and questioning them at all is a complete waste of time, because the bad guys will just change their plans. Yes, Liam, your argument applies to the “High Tea” style of friendly “interrogation” that you whackos demand, just as it applies to “torture.”
Or, you don’t seriously think that OBL had to see on TV that KSM had been captured, do you? You don’t think that bad guys find out when one of them is captured??? Unless the capture is shown on CNN?
You are a world-class moron.
All 40 repugs voted inhofe’s amendment shows what cowards they are – like sbj, who is even afraid of bloggers. Pathetic for a national party.
I asked people with fully functioning brains, to use them, that did not apply to you; Quarterbrain, and you have just confirmed why it did not apply to you.
Liam the Drunk says:
“Now Quarterbrain thinks that Bin Laden is still not roaming free to this very day.”
You think that not having been captured equals roaming Scot free, huh? Figures, thinking isn’t what you are good at.
O more good news, peeps!
“Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a loophole that had allowed the house’s owners to avoid paying property taxes.”
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/c_street_house_no_longer_tax_exempt.php
Woo Hoo!
For the record, SBJ, here is the question that you refused to answer:
SBJ, do you think that old, white Republicans get their info from Fox News?
I know. I’m tough. You should be afraid of me. I am unstable. And dangerous. Because I ask such difficult yes/no questions.
Poor Old Quarterbrain. He is lost since his fellow torture loving Cluster Of Incompentents lost power.
LOL, good answer Liam the Lamebrain!
Your point was so absurdly stupid that even you can’t defend it now.
Tell me, should we stop capturing bad guys and interrogating them? Won’t the bad guys just change their plans and make interrogation pointless?
What now, genius?
Ethan, do you mind terribly if I’m not afraid of you?
“You think that not having been captured equals roaming Scot free, huh”
What do you think it equals? I’m really dying for this answer…
Cause I want you to explain to me, QB, how not being captured doesn’t equal not being captured.
That’s what you just said.
qb thinks the U.S. got to where it is now because we torture people.
Haha, not at all Tena.
I am like you… I kinda prefer when people respond to simple questions instead of being rude.
Have you seen any video or pictures of OBL “roaming Scot free” lately?
Where do you actually think OBL is right now? Hunkered down in cave as for the last 8 years? Is that roaming Scot free?
Liam – I don’t see any percentage in engaging stoopid fvcking trolls like qb.
Poor old Quarterbrain, he now can not distinguish between torturing prisoners, and interrogating them; and yet he claims that he is a lawyer. Sure he is; My Arse!!!
QB,
Can you answer a simple yes/no question?
Do you think the combined efforts of prosecutors at DoJ AND the Pentagon got this wrong?
“how not being captured doesn’t equal not being captured”
Because the claim was he is roaming Scot free. Hiding somewhere in cave in one of the most desolate places in the world, or running for your life for 8 years isn’t exactly that, now is it.
Wow, looks like I missed a big food fight here (sorry, had actual work to do). I’m just going to put in my 2 cents that this seems to be more the result of the skill that Republicans (and an enabling media) possess in spreading disinformation. If people were informed that a) the DoJ is virtually 100% they will win the case b) they are able, and are seeking, the death penalty then these numbers would move dramatically in favor of the trials (’danger’ or no). People just want to see these terrorists suffer for their crimes.
“Hunkered down in cave as for the last 8 years? Is that roaming Scot free?”
HOw the hell do you know where Osama bin Laden is now, where he has been the last 7 years except for when we had him pinned down – we all knew where he was and Bush let him go.
You don’t frakking know anything at all about Osama bin Laden – unless you’re a sleeper cell terrorist who is in contact with al Qaeda.
All you know is that as far as the US capturing him goes, Osama bin Laden is scott free.
Please stop feeding the trolls, you’re drowning out legitimate conversation guys.
@ethan: I just don’t wanna be the one that finally pushes you over the edge:
“Blog Regular ‘Ethan’ Goes Berserk at Old Folks Home”
“He was mad at us for watching Fox,” said some old white Republican dude…Police seek sbj for questioning, “He wrote something that really ticked ‘Ethan’ off.”
For those of you who use your brains, which excludes Torture Loving Quarterbrain;
When the CIA has one of their agents captured, do they, or do they not, roll up all their other agents and operations that the missing agent has knowledge of, at once, because they have become compromised.
When KSM was shown being captured, on TV in Pakistan, do you think that his Terrorist contacts did not do the same thing, with his contacts, as the CIA would with theirs, and by the time he was waterboarded, he had nothing worth a damn to reveal.
If he had, then we would have been able to capture up the chain, toward Bin Laden, and we have not, so clearly we got nothing worth torturing over, out of him.
No, Ethan, I asked you a question earlier. You declined to answer. If you want to just admit now you were wrong, I’ll be happy to answer your question.
Liam – of course, you’re right about that.
Plus, it’s my understanding that the way al Qaeda is organized, no one but bin Laden knows who is whom and where they are.
They have a very de-centralized organization purposely to avoid having their plans and positions compromised.
Different cells don’t even know of other cells’ existence, who is in them – anything. They all report to each other in a cell and they don’t tell their people anything that isn’t germane to only whatever it is that cell is working on.
I hate to admit it, but it’s a damned smart set-up.
@sbj
“Harsh interrogation is not designed to produce evidence for use in court – it is designed to produce intelligence.”
That is simply untrue.
It’s designed to get the person your torturing to admit to whatever the h*** you want them to admit to – true or not. In this case, it was to get them to say there was a connection between al qaeda and Iraq.
If someone tortured you for months on end, you’d admit that you helped plan the 9/11 attacks, or killed Micheal Jackson, or anything else whoever was doing it to you told you to say.
*note: There was NO link between al qaeda and Iraq.
qb
I’m pretty sure the FBI, CIA and military intelligence have better interrogation techniques than sitting over a cuppa. They have successfully used them in the past and will use them again now that our President has made it clear that we do not torture.
Most of us are quite happy to turn the corner on that path and no amount of kicking and screaming will deter us. Your torture arguments are falling on deaf ears and to be quite truthful your opinion is irrelevant to the nth. degree.
““He was mad at us for watching Fox,” said some old white Republican dude…Police seek sbj for questioning, “He wrote something that really ticked ‘Ethan’ off.””
Freaking hilarious. Thanks for the LOL.
Here is my commitment to you, SBJ: I promise not to go postal at a senior citizen home for Republicans. hahaha. jeeeeeez.
Needless to say, I abhor violence.
I wonder the same from my Republican friends who condone torture, war, and the death penalty.
@BBQ: Did you read my link to the editorial that Hayden and Mukasey wrote?
Keep digging that hole, Liam, but I doubt even your buddies here are going to try to jump in what one with you.
Apparently all of our intelligence agencies — and all of those in the rest of the world from the beginning of history — have been wasting their time questioned bad guys they capture. Military, too, it would appear.
That’s just such a brilliant piece of reasoning. It’s beautiful, truly. You need to write a book or at least a major paper on it. Maybe Foreign Affairs would publish it.
I co-sign Imsinca @ 4:43pm – with great big bells on!
“That is simply untrue.
It’s designed to get the person your torturing to admit to whatever the h*** you want them to admit to – true or not. In this case, it was to get them to say there was a connection between al qaeda and Iraq.”
You have no idea what you are talking about, BBQ. Not even worth saying anything else to you.
The real tell about the decision to torture is; and this never gets pointed out;
When Bush/Cheney authorized the use of torture, they were not in a position to know if it would produce good results or not.
Therefore; they just decided to use torture, regardless of what the result might be.
After the fact, they are claiming that their Authorization of Torture was justified, because of the results it produced. I do not believe that it did produce much results that were worth a lot, but let us say that if it did; what would the Bush/Cheney position on their defense of the use of torture be, if it had not produced results?
Do you follow my point? When they Authorized the Use Of Torture, they had no results to base it on, so they were just Opting for Torture, regardless of if it payed off OR NOT. That is why they are guilty of crimes against humanity, because they green lighted the use of torture, period.
“It’s designed to get the person your torturing to admit to whatever the h*** you want them to admit to ”
Exactly. Torture really isn’t about the physical agony – it’s about breaking someone down totally until they will do or say anything to please the torturer.
What QB tragically will not face is that torture also destroys the torturers. It destroys everyone involved.
It is psychologically and morally repugnant to all but sadists, sociopaths and people with mental problems. It wreaks absolute havoc on the torturers as well as the tortured.
IT just destroys utterly any moral causus belli you might have had going in.
It’s just destructive – it’s not productive.
“You have no idea what you are talking about, BBQ. Not even worth saying anything else to you.”
O my god you really are a True Believer or else a bigger idiot than I realized.
Holy **** – you don’t know anything, do you?
Police and other law enforcement agents interogate people all the time. They are not allowed to torture them.
The fact that Quarterbrain keeps conflating Torture with Interrogation methods shows that he is lying about being a lawyer.
No legitimate lawyer would do that.
Imsinca,
Except that you and the rest of your crowd here make no rational distinctions between torture and non-torture. I went through this debate with leftists here months ago, and people like you raved on and on about torture at GITMO, but every time I or anyone else asked what interrogation techniques were described in the CIA memos and which ones they considered torture they had no idea. They, like you, just blithely condemned the whole program as a torture program and Cheney and Bush as torture lovers. Without a clue what they were even talking about.
So, you can be as smug as you want and declare my opinion irrelevant all you want, but at least my opinion is based on facts and reality. Yours isn’t, and I’d say that makes yours irrelevant to any reasoned debate.
“I asked you a question earlier. You declined to answer. If you want to just admit now you were wrong, I’ll be happy to answer your question.”
Okay, nevermind.
I had no idea he claimed to be one.
no further comment needed.
” They, like you, just blithely condemned the whole program as a torture program and Cheney and Bush as torture lovers. Without a clue what they were even talking about.
”
Bullshit.
Waterboarding is torture, was discussed, you know that.
Your argument is that it’s not.
Well, then we wrongly executed a number of Japanese POWs after WWII.
POW John McCain calls Waterboarding torture.
Former Judge Advocate, Senator Lindsey Graham, also calls Waterboarding torture.
I think those two are more qualified to make that call, than Faux Lawyer, Quarterbrain.
LOL, well you are all in full sleepwalk mode now, talking points completely dominating your consciousness, rational thought shut down completely.
Obviously, none of you are familiar with the CIA memos and OLC memos or the facts surrounding them. You obviously don’t even know what the EITs were, which ones were used, how they were used, or what information they elicited.
You can make all the extravagantly moralizing claims about “torture” that you want. You aren’t dealing with any facts.
So there isn’t anything to discuss with you in your state of complete ignorance. You’ll just have to feel satsified in your ignorant piety.
Oh, no, I forgot, you are all atheists or God-haters, too.
Hmmm, more than half of the posts are stupid posts by the fvcking troll, qb and others engaging him fruitlessly.
Okay, waterboarding you say is torture. You say it can never be justified?
Which other EITs were torture? Do you even know what they were?
And, no, we went throught the “Japanese soldiers” urban legend. There were no cases of Japanese soldiers executed for the treatment KSM received.
“I had no idea he claimed to be one.
no further comment needed.”
That’s hilarious, since I’ve schooled you on such issues as the First Amendment.
Waterboarding is an EIT, was used on several detainees, therefore we tortured detainees. Deny all you want, and we are not all atheists or God haters which just shows how little you really know.
Do you deny that waterboarding is torture?
“The fact that Quarterbrain keeps conflating Torture with Interrogation methods shows that he is lying about being a lawyer.
No legitimate lawyer would do that”
Still digging, I see.
I haven’t discussed let alone conflated any methods. I’ve just been asking you folks which ones are which, since you claim to have such great moral clarity in the matter. But all you can say is “torture is torture is always bad” as if that means something.
You hilariously keep deflecting because you still don’t know what the EITs were. You are just making circular statements.
Quarterbrain has not even attempted to refute the statement that he is lying about being a lawyer. He just skipped over it, several times. Of course he will try to now, but it is too late. Any real lawyer would have refuted it, at once.
Since he is lying about being a lawyer, all his claims about how much he knows about what results were obtained from the use of torture, can also be assumed to be just more of his made up horse manure.
Faux claims from a Faux Lawyer.
From what we know about what was done to KSM and the other two murdering butchers, no I think it probably wasn’t torture.
But you have to start with a definition of torture, which is not a simple matter. Most liberals just go with a tautological or political approach, as far as I can tell, such as, “I know it when I see it,” or I know it was torture because Bush and Cheney did it.
I personally would have no problem with the treatment of KSM or one of these other murderers if they had information that was believed to be critically important to our safety. Some of the liberals on this board, when confronted with the hard choice between waterboarding KSM and protecting their own families lives, said they would let their families die rather than give up the “rule of law” by waterboarding KSM.
That isn’t morality but foolish moral vanity to me. And I don’t believe 9 out of 10 people who make that morally vain claim would be true to it. Not when you are the person who has to make the hard judgment in real time and aren’t looking back from a clear sunny day, as Cheney said.
You liberals just try to evade these really issues by assuming them away, and imagining that all this is about is some sadistic people who wanted to exercise cruelty for no reason. And you can’t escape the issue by claiming it “doesn’t work” or “didn’t work.” I know that is why all the liberals are so willfully blind and insistent that it “doesn’t work”– because if it does “work” then they have to face tough choices. Well, it does and did “work.” Those in the EIT program including KSM delivered a wealth of important information. Your idiot friend Liam can keep denying all he wants. He’s just an idiot liar.
Now, what other EITs were torture, according to you, the moral compass?
That was for Imsinca.
You know, Liam the Liar, I couldn’t care less what you or anyone else here thinks I am or what education you think I have.
If I’m just some uneducated dunce, all the worse for you, since I intellectually embarrass you on a regular basis — just like above.
Embarrassing to be shown to have made a foolishly stupid argument that “proved to much,” isn’t it?
And more embarrassing when that stupid person who did it to you “isn’t even a lawyer.”
“And more embarrassing when that stupid person who did it to you “isn’t even a lawyer.””
HAHAHAHAHAHA – you never know when it’s time to shut up, QB.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Your insecurity is showing, Tena.
qb
I am only the moral compass for myself, no one else. I don’t know what other EIT’s would be considered torture, I’ll leave that up to better minds than I, but I do believe that waterboarding was torture. I also believe that it has done a great deal of damage to the country and our standing in the world.
Regarding using torture to protect my family, I probably would do it, and worse if given the chance, but then I would freely admit I had done it and throw myself on the mercy of others. I don’t believe I would try to change the rules for myself or try to convince others of the legitimacy of my actions or try to share the blame with others. To me Cheney and those who condoned this and then tried to justify it are cowards, and that is my opinion.
One more thing as a Nation of Laws I don’t believe the Executive Branch and Judicial Branch should be allowed to circumvent those laws. What we do as individuals is one thing, and we may be punished for it, but I think it is fair to say our elected officials and their appointees should adhere to the historical standard.
Well, I appreciate the honesty about what you would do, but pardon me for thinking you are making a vanishingly slight moral distinction between doing it while believing it wrong, and asking for mercy (you), and what you apparently presume Cheney did, approve while believing it wrong and trying to justify it.
That is a basis for claiming you are moral and he is an immoral, indeed evil, lawbreaker?
And, of course, you are assuming without any basis I am aware of that Cheney actually believed it morally wrong and illegal but tried to justify it.
As for nation of laws, etc., I think you are just talking in ungrounded generalities. I’ve actually read the “torture memos,” and they are quite well reasoned and supported. They bear no resemblance at all to the absurd caricatures of non-lawyer liberals.
I didn’t call him evil, and I have no idea what he was thinking, but yes I can both say what I might do as an individual in a given situation and what I would expect our leaders to do to uphold the law as it is written. I am saying my doing something distateful or even immoral to me would not necessarily prevent me from doing it, and I would suffer the consequences. Since you’re a lawyer and I am not I can only speak in generalities but I believe waterboarding was a huge mistake made by Cheney/Bush et al and I also believe it made us more susceptible to terrorists and was extremely detrimental to our standing in the world of nations. It seems to me that Cheney and Jr. Cheney have been on the air waves quite a bit trying to justify torture. IMHO end of story.
Note that “sbj” just came out in support of torture and war crimes: “Harsh interrogation is not designed to produce evidence for use in court – it is designed to produce intelligence.”
That’s false.
The Republican torture techniques were patterned after the Communist Chinese torture techniques used for what was then called “brainwashing”.
Republican’s tortured to gain FALSE intelligence to support the war they lied US into.
Republican committed war crimes.
But almost just as bad are the right winger’s support of war crimes designed from Communist Chinese torture techniques used specifically to “brain wash” people into false confessions.
But you have to start with a definition of torture, which is not a simple matter. Most liberals just go with a tautological or political approach, as far as I can tell, such as, “I know it when I see it,” or I know it was torture because Bush and Cheney did it.
I personally would have no problem with the treatment of KSM or one of these other murderers if they had information that was believed to be critically important to our safety.
This is why qb is a war criminal in all but name. He desires the committing of war crimes to be the official policy of the USA, despite the fact that until the war criminal perverts of the last administration stained the Oval Office with their up-is-downisms there never was any question about what was and was not torture.
The only reason qb and his ilk argue that now is because they want us to be a torturing country without getting punished for being so.