Conservative radio hosts gets waterboarded, and lasts six seconds before saying its torture

reply to post by rapinbatsisaltherage


You win. You are obviously so narrowly focused, claiming every article I linked was false while assuming every article you linked was true, holding such a high moral opinion on torture while enjoying the freedoms that these 'horrible' acts have provided you that I find myself in a position of not just justifying articles but justifying the articles that justify the initial articles.
Thank you for the exercise in debate.

I sincerely hope that Pelosi (now, not a few years ago) and you are right and that we aren't attacked again. And that if we ever (god forbid) were, that torture/enhanced interrogation/pillow fight/ hurting feelings would not have made a difference in the outcome.

reply to post by mikerussellus

You win.

I don't want to "win". Sorry if I come off that way, I know I'm not the most easy going debater. I tend to take things a little too seriously, but I'm passionate about these issues. Believe it or not I really am trying to get you to see this from another perspective.

You are obviously so narrowly focused, claiming every article I linked was false]

I showed you how claims in the articles were either false or unsubstantiated or completely unrelated to our discussion with sources.

while assuming every article you linked was true,

No offense but you didn't seem to have read your own articles so I doubt you read mine. Read them, if they're false then show how they are false then combat them with other sources.

holding such a high moral opinion on torture while enjoying the freedoms that these 'horrible' acts have provided

These horrible acts have provided me nothing. I would be much happier if people were never tortured and we were never falsely taken into Iraq. I would be happier if people hadn't died for political gain. If anything we have lost more rights since 9/11 (see Patriot Act) and we will forever have a stain on this nation for not only torturing, but continuing to try and condone it when it was not successful during the majority of the time that we used it.

I sincerely hope that Pelosi (now, not a few years ago) and you are right and that we aren't attacked again.

Why bring Pelosi into this? Why not mention the former CIA interrogator that agrees with me? I you trying to make this a political issue? I hope you know that I can't stand Pelosi and that this is not a political issue to me.

Originally posted by mikerussellus
Look, if anyone here can convince me that more lives can be saved, that the war can end quicker without torture, please tell me.
I would love to hear a solution to this mess that doesn't require 'dirty' 'wet' work.
We are dealing with a group of individuals that do not hold the same ssanctity to life that the western cultures do. So the same approach that we would use towards our more conventional foes just doesn't apply here.

Torture just makes the USA look bad. Based on what you're saying, middle east cultures might not agree with western cultures, so that means its ok for them to torture you? You have such an elitist view and thats a major problem in the west. Just because what they do is backwards, doesn't mean they dont have the same view of you as you do of them.

excuse me people but i see chenny himself looking far more guilty of the 911 attacks than any of these poor basturds. not just an opinion anymore.
look at the facts.

Originally posted by joesomebody
Torture or not, true criminals (not those in the rightwing reports who are headed off to fema camps like all of us...lol) lose certain rights when captured. In this case, I would personally define torture as not damaging someone physically or mentally, but doing what is necessary to save innocent lives. He isn't being deprived of life, limb, or overall health if he is waterboarded. If he thinks he is dying, so be it if it saves even one innocent life. Not just American lives, but any nationality.



1 Criminal Life != 1 innocent

Coming from someone who is sporting a cross as an avatar and claiming to be in the loving arms of Jesus, and yet touting how it is ok to mentally torment and torture other human beings for the purposes of interrogation....the irony does not escape me nor does the canned hypocrisy.

So mental terror is not considered torture then? How about if your captor wakes you up every morning and informs you today is the day you will be executed? What if every day your captor places you on your knees and puts the barrell of a revolver to your head, pulling back the hammer and clicking the trigger, only to dry fire and simulate execution? Not terrorizing? Dont think that would cause you to lose sleep?

How would you feel after weeks of this, believing every day that the next shot will be the real thing, knowing that the next time may be your last?

Now say that gun is never actually loaded.

Technically it would mean that you were never in a real physical danger of death....but is that not torture still?

If you say no...then many Vietnam veterans who still suffer PTSD will beg to differ.

Would the terror of believing that you were going to die not be massive? Would it not be psychologically crippling? How about being told lies of how your family members have died and how your loved ones have been captured or tortured or killed? The not knowing, would that not eat away at you and cause you just as much pain as a bamboo shoot under your toenail?

Water boarding, no matter how unassuming it may appear, is in fact torture. It is simulated drowning, the brain believes it is drowning. Victims black out, they experience brain damage and psychological terror for years in some cases.

Call it whatever you wish, say whatever you like about what good it did, and I may even agree. But to say it isn't torture because it doesn't involve cutting or hammering or other direct physical pain is just ignorant and misiniformed.

And as this thread has suggested, if you are the gambling type....go on and give it a try. See for yourself. Take pictures.

im pretty sure chenny ordered northcom to stand down on sept. 11

I really dont think the average american knows what were dealing with.

Maybe this will help:

first on its use its been used on 3 people in March 2003, KSM became the third and final terrorist ever waterboarded by the CIA. The other two were Abu Zubaydah and Rahim Al-Nashiri.

So few were waterboarded because the CIA was so strict in the criteria for deciding when the technique could be used.

As CIA Acting General Counsel John A. Rizzo explained in a 2004 letter to then-Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the CIA would only resort to waterboarding a top al-Qaida leader when the agency had "credible intelligence that a terrorist attack is imminent," "substantial and credible indicators that the subject has actionable intelligence that can prevent, disrupt or deny this attack" and "(o)ther interrogation methods have failed to elicit the information within the perceived time limit for preventing the attack."

CIA Waterboarding Produced Intel That Stopped Attack on Los Angeles that was going to be a repeat of the world trade center!

The previously classified memo was released by President Obama last week. Before they were waterboarded, both KSM and Abu Zubaydah did not believe Americans had the will to stop al-Qaida, the 2005 Justice Department memo says, citing information from the CIA.

do you want to know what he thought of Americans?

"Both KSM and Zubaydah had 'expressed their belief that the general U.S. population was 'weak,' lacked resilience and would be unable to 'do what was necessary' to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals,'" said the memo. "Indeed, before the CIA used enhanced techniques in its interrogation of KSM, KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, 'Soon, you will know.'" After he was waterboarded, KSM provided the CIA with information that allowed the U.S. government to close down a terror cell already "tasked" with flying a jet into a building in Los Angele

Heres another fact of water boarding the US government had to stop using it in SERE training According to another previously classified memo that Obama released , some branches of the U.S. military stopped using water boarding in training certain troops not because water boarding had harmful long-term effects, but because it was so universally effective in extracting information. And since this was supposed to teach them how to hold out against interrogation was counter productive.

So what did we learn here you water board someone they'll sell out there mom. So it seems its very effective and doesn't cause physical damage. And quite frankly is just Media hype because everyone captured is not water boarded as you can see it was used very sparingly 3 people,And i guess its effective even someone who said Americans were weak and wouldn't talk eventually gave up his contact here in the states.

PS Apparently alot of people were saved in Los Angeles!

[edit on 5/23/09 by dragonridr]

reply to post by dragonridr

some branches of the U.S. military stopped using water boarding in training certain troops not because water boarding had harmful long-term effects, but because it was so universally effective in extracting information.

Link? Source? You do realize we derived our waterboarding program from a system that was made to gain FALSE intelligence? We've never needed waterboarding, we found other techniques work just as good and that waterboarding often just gathers false "facts".

The military agency which actually provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects warned the Pentagon in 2002 that those techniques would produce "unreliable information."http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403171_pf.html

* Army Field Manual 34-52 Chapter 1 says:

"Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear."http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/policy/army/fm/fm34-52/chapter1.htm

A declassified FBI e-mail dated May 10, 2004, regarding interrogation at Guantanamo states "[we] explained to [the Department of Defense], FBI has been successful for many years obtaining confessions via non-confrontational interviewing techniques."http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=9876

Brigadier General David R. Irvine, retired Army Reserve strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner interrogation and military law for 18 years with the Sixth Army Intelligence School, says torture doesn't workwww.alternet.org...

The CIA's own Inspector General wrote that waterboarding was not "efficacious" in producing informationwww.huffingtonpost.com...

A former FBI interrogator -- who interrogated Al Qaeda suspects -- says categorically that torture does not help collect intelligence. On the other hand he says that torture actually turns people into terroristswww.boingboing.net...

A 30-year veteran of CIA’s operations directorate who rose to the most senior managerial ranks, says:

“The administration’s claims of having ‘saved thousands of Americans’ can be dismissed out of hand because credible evidence has never been offered — not even an authoritative leak of any major terrorist operation interdicted based on information gathered from these interrogations in the past seven years. … It is irresponsible for any administration not to tell a credible story that would convince critics at home and abroad that this torture has served some useful purpose.

This is not just because the old hands overwhelmingly believe that torture doesn’t work — it doesn’t — but also because they know that torture creates more terrorists and fosters more acts of terror than it could possibly neutralize.”www.truthout.org...

The FBI interrogators who actually interviewed some of the 9/11 suspects say torture didn't worktpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com...

The Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously found that torture doesn't work.harpers.org...

In fact, top American World War 2 interrogators got more information without torture than those who use torture are getting today. And the head of Britian's wartime interrogation center in London www.washingtonpost.com...

You can thank: georgewashington2.blogspot.com... for compiling this information in one easy, access place.

Furthermore, the Bush admin. stopped torturing in 2005 or 2006. Apparently they were able to keep us safe since without it.


[edit on 23-5-2009 by rapinbatsisaltherage]

Originally posted by sos37

Originally posted by grover
Yeah all those who are cavalier about torture obviously haven't had it happen to them... think about it though... waterboarding simulates drowning... having come close to drowning a couple of times in my life and I can say without equivocation that it is a terrifying experience and even if you know that you aren't drowning... your body doesn't and will react like it does... with panic.

So you're obviously cavalier about terrorism then since you don't give a damn whether or not we get information out of captured men that could possibly prevent an attack on one of our cities.

The information you get from torture isn't worth a damn bit as people will downright lie and say just anything in order for the torture to stop. As a technique to get information out of captured men that could possibly prevent an attack one one of your cities it's just a waste of time and effort. It may, however, be done for the (very debatable) amusement of the people who does it.

Originally posted by WhatTheory

Originally posted by grover
We are a nation of laws that is what is supposed to make us different from the rest of the world... we willingly signed the Geneva conventions and we have not withdrawn from them... therefore like it or not they are the law of the land... and they define water boarding as torture... hence we broke the law.

To bad the Geneva Conventions does not apply to the terrorists. Please show me where Al Quaida & the Taliban signed them.

The Geneva Convention is signed by countries, not by groups of people.

Great Post BlackOp..torture does not have to be physical to be effective! The problem with any Torture is, can the information obtained be trusted? I've heard military people say you cannot trust info derived from torture mainly because you will say Anything to make it stop..

Recently Jesse Ventura has been making the talk show rounds promoting a new book, he has said several times..Give me an Hour waterboarding Dick Cheney and I'll have him confessing the the Sharon Tate murder. (Manson Murders..) While I'm not a big fan of Dick's I highly doubt he was involved...although..hmmm.

..as pointed out by BlackOp, being held captive not knowing your future is alot different than willingly be subjected to torture, the Hutchin's (sp) vid is the best example I've seen of a volunteer, but even he has the Safety devices to make it Stop so it's still not even close to the real Thing..

Your dealing with Primal fears when you simulate drowning, there is nothing you can do to prepare for it, your Brain decides how you react, and it will be do whatever it takes to make it Stop!

WHY??WHY??? Do you people still refer to party lines?? They all work for the SAME PEOPLE!
All you people on ATS should already know this!!!
As far as mancow getting waterboarded.....It seriously make me want to cry...that civilization is so barbaric and unevolved and all those that suffer at the hands of serial killing psychopaths..

What kind of sadistic minded person could repeatedly do something like water boarding knowing that the guy will promise him sex with his grandma to get it to stop?.... Would you trust such a person to watch your children for you while you run down to the 7-11 for Dr Pepper and beef jerky?.... I witnessed this torture technique being utilized on young Vietnamese girls in a village near the D.M.Z. that was rumoured to be allowing N.V.A. to enter at night for food and the company of these girls.... The torturing was being performed by some characters wearing what looked like L.L.Bean safari clothing with a mixture of of S.O.G. and Force Recon people blocking the doorway to prevent us from seeing what was going on, but I saw enough.... Even a tough old Lt. Colonel was repulsed by what he saw and was very upset, especially when we saw the condition of these girls as they were carried out the front door and then behind the little schoolhouse.... They didn't appear to be alive and they had us move out of the village and set up at a Bru tribe village a few clicks away..... I will probably not sleep at all tonight, I usually don't when I think about things like this..... 40 years 8 months 1 week ago.

Somehow managed to post this in the wrong thread.

Sorry.

[edit on 23/5/2009 by Kryties]

Originally posted by RRconservative
This doesn't prove it is torture. It proves that it is an effective technique.

It is an effective technique to get people to talk. They will tell you anything, not necessarily the truth.

reply to post by kettlebellysmith


blah blah blah, get a grip of yourself, it is important to treat your prisoners how you wish your own men to be treated if they are captured, after all, arent the americans insurgent terrorists in someone elses country?, it is attitudes like yours that start to justify the way the japanese treated pow's in ww2

Originally posted by WhatTheory
Waterboarding is NOT torture.
Bamboo under fingernails IS torture.
Cutting off heads IS torture.
Burning flesh and hanging from a bridge IS torture.
Hammer to toes and fingers IS torture.
Waterboarding is NOT torture. Waterboarding is mental and not physical.

Torture doesn't have to be physical. Torture can be both mental and/or physical.

Originally posted by WhatTheory
If it is torture, then I guess our military tortures it's own soldiers since it is part of their training.

Yes that appears to be the case.

Originally posted by WhatTheory
The Geneva Conventions does not apply to terrorists.
Also, please show me where the Taliban and Al Quaida signed the Conventions.

If that's your reasoning then show me where the CIA signed the conventions. Well they didn't so it doesn't apply to them, then, right? Scary thought, but... doesn't that make the CIA yet another terrorist organisation? Again by your reasoning.

Originally posted by mike5150
Mancow did not show me that water boarding is torture, he showed me that it is effective. If he were a enemy soldier and had vital information, he would be spilling his guts within 5 seconds.

Only that it would be useless as he would have spilled his "guts" regardless of whether he had any vital information or not. He would have made anything up to satisfy his perpetrators.