UGH! Sick of people using the imagery and horror of 9/11 to justify torture!

Right now, John Brennan, CIA Director, is doing it in his presser - as has almost every single apologist for the torture and abuse committed by the CIA.

It's kind of like like using shallow patriotism to get votes or sell furniture on Memorial Day. I'm just sick of the emotional manipulation from our politicians. 9/11 did not justify selling out what little moral authority the U.S. had. Abuse and victimization does not give one the right to abuse and victimize.

Basically the arguments from all of the apologists boil down to - ""We were scared." Not much different than the arguments put forth by LEOs after they shoot an unarmed citizen.

Well guess what - fear is not helpful in decision making. We should never let fear determine our actions or our fate, but strategy and reason. And anyone with power or authority who uses fear as a justification should no longer be trusted with power or authority.

a reply to: kosmicjack

I started to laugh as soon as I heard him start off with it........

*Time to put on my rubber boots*



Wonder how long it will take for him to step down?

a reply to: kosmicjack

The three thousand who lost their lives on 9/11/ 01 can't tell us how they feel about the never ending wars they're being blamed for.

The government should stop laying it at their feet.

a reply to: kosmicjack

I don't believe that torture tactics really work...because there is a point that a person will confess to just about anything...so that the torture will stop.

I think that treating prisoners with a bed, warm blanket, clothes, food and a cup of tea will eventually in the long run cause many of them to open up and talk; am I wrong? I just am not sure.

torturing the wrong people I don't see larry silverstein in jail having things rammed up his ass by US marines

same ole same ole the perps get away with it and blame so mug ...

Torture is unjustifiable no matter how you look at it. Is trading pain for pain the policy of morality?

Good ol' 9/11, the greatest charade of modern times is yet again being dusted off and used as a scapegoat for the infringement of human rights and the advancement of the police state. So convenient having 2,996 excuses to back up any more unjust actions.

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: kosmicjack

The three thousand who lost their lives on 9/11/ 01 can't tell us how they feel about the never ending wars they're being blamed for.

The government should stop laying it at their feet.

That's a great quote. I might have to steal it.

My opinion is that tortures have been going on a lot longer than perceived.

originally posted by: Kali74

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: kosmicjack

The three thousand who lost their lives on 9/11/ 01 can't tell us how they feel about the never ending wars they're being blamed for.

The government should stop laying it at their feet.

That's a great quote. I might have to steal it.

I would be flattered.

On 09/12/01 the cry was 'Keep us safe'. If we'd had another incident everybody in the CIA would have been keel-hauled.
Waterboarding and forced feeding are not 'torture', at least not as defined by law at that time.
Every country has always had back-alley operatives. It can be a dirty business but that's just how mankind rolls.
It's impossible to say whether the 'enhanced interrogation' was needed, but the bottom line is we got some good info.
Obama campaigned partly on 'Bin Laden is dead'. I didn't hear Dianne Feinstein complaining about that operation.

WTF do we think the Austrians, Bulgarians, Cote d'Ivorians, Estonians, Finns, Gambians, Hungarians, Iranians, Japanese, Koreans (N & S), Lebanese, Mongolians, Norwegians, Poles, Russians, Slovaks, Thais, Ukrainians, Venezuelans or Zairans do to keep their people safe?

The CIA's harshest treatment is still probly much more humane than your average jail in Cuba or China or most third world dumps.

originally posted by: caladonea
a reply to: kosmicjack

I don't believe that torture tactics really work...because there is a point that a person will confess to just about anything...so that the torture will stop.

I think that treating prisoners with a bed, warm blanket, clothes, food and a cup of tea will eventually in the long run cause many of them to open up and talk; am I wrong? I just am not sure.

Torture tactics do not work, just for the reasons that you stated.

However, treating prisoners humanely does work in nearly all cases...except for the case of religious zealots. Sadly this seems to be the case for the "prisoners of war" we have now. How to crack them? It really doesn't matter. Most of the terrorist groups are organized into cells and sub-cells and half the time one doesn't know what the other is doing. In these days of cell phones, I doubt that they even have each other's phone numbers memorized.

It's just a case of sadistic men getting their rocks off and studying how much pain the human body can take. Meanwhile, all the torture is being used as propaganda to teach other terrorists not to be taken alive. Wonderful, isn't it?

www.foxnews.com...

Brennan justifies enhanced interrogation.

***Brennan claimed that detainees subjected to harsh methods produced "very useful, valuable intelligence." Whether that information could have been obtained with other methods, he said, is "unknowable." ***

I think I'd take his word over Dianne Feinstein any day.

Even if humane treatment works, how long would one have to wait for some actionable intel? Months?

a reply to: works4dhs

what are you so scared of?

originally posted by: FoosM
a reply to: works4dhs

what are you so scared of?

I 'm scared of some tree hugging, humanity loving, make love and not war setting the standards and we get stabbed to death by the Vikings and their swords.

Except now it isn't vikings and swords. It is nuclear warheads, dirty bombs, fully auto machine guns, biological weapons, and all sorts of crazy crap that some lunatic can pull out of a trunk of acar and do some crazy damage with.

I wish everyone would stop acting like this world is like an episode of tge Brady Bunch, or the Partridge Family.

I would like to add that the things I listed above are really not my worst fears. It was mainly an example.

My biggest fear is my family being subjected to a SHTF scenario and the ultimate fight for survival.

I don't know exactly how I feel on torture, I feel bad for the innocent, but I despise the guilty.

a reply to: kosmicjack

The action of the torturers, (including Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowhatever), shame our country. They are war criminals. If they were from another country we'd all be calling for their prosecution.

a reply to: works4dhs

The United States I'm proud of, (or at least used to be proud of), is better than all of the other countries you mentioned. I don't care who else tortures people - the REAL United States does not.

***Karl Rove, a longtime senior political adviser to Bush, said on “Fox News Sunday” that interrogation techniques were carefully designed to fall short of torture, a point Cheney made as well on NBC.
“Look, these were carefully designed with an idea, with the principles in mind of our statutory obligations and international commitments,” he said.***

***Rodriguez emphasized that the Justice Department and the CIA’s inspector general signed off on the interrogation program.
He said harsh tactics were justified by “a binding legal opinion in writing that we received from Justice Department, the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, that said that waterboarding and 10 other techniques were legal.”***


thehill.com...

in other words, the practices were reviewed by the Justice Department as being in line with treaties and agreements. They performed enhanced interrogations, NOT torture, and they were specifically designed to meet international criteria.
Too bad they couldn't meet the wrath of outraged democrat politicians and their toadies in the suckup media.