Posted on 04/23/2009 10:37:43 AM PDT by lewisglad
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. We practiced sleep deprivation on him for 11 straight days. I don't know how many times we smashed his head against a wall, slapped him in the face, put him in a stress position in a freezing room and/or put him in a coffin sized box in extreme heat. But the right-wing argues that it doesn't matter because none of this is torture. They are adamant in saying that it is not even open to interpretation.
Because, remember, if it's at least open to interpretation, we should investigate to see if laws were broken and we crossed the line into torture. Their logic is that this is so obviously not torture that it does not require any investigation at all! It's an open and shut case.
Obviously, I disagree. It's one thing to admit that this appears to have crossed the line but you have no problem with that because we should be torturing the bad guys to get information out of them (that is a less morally defensible position but at least it's logically consistent). But it's another thing to claim that all of these "enhanced interrogation" techniques are nowhere near torture.
So, let me ask you this -- what if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had died during one of these extreme interrogations?
Here is a perfectly plausible hypothetical: He's had no sleep for eight days, he's exhausted and stuffed in a tiny box in a sweltering hot room with insects crawling all over him, we take him out, smash his head against the wall three times and then waterboard him for the 162nd time. And boom he goes into cardiac arrest and dies on the spot. Did we just torture him to death or was his death just coincidental? Was his interrogation so obviously clean that it doesn't even require an investigation?
Let's get real. If he had died, everyone in the world would have thought it was torture without a shadow of a doubt. As it was, he survived -- so, it's all kosher? No reasonable person can argue that these draconian techniques do not merit an investigation to see if they crossed the line into torture. Especially because we already know that we have in the past considered waterboarding such a serious crime that we have executed people for practicing it against our soldiers.
I know what conservatives are screaming into their computers right now: "But he didn't die! None of them died.
Now, the folks who did this have the temerity to say that the people who exposed these crimes are making America look bad. How about the people who committed them in the first place?
They add that we should ignore the beatings and the drownings because it would be political to look into them. In reality, the only thing that could stop an investigation of these clear abuses is politics. It's their only shield. Otherwise, a Justice Department inquiry would be monumentally obvious.
If anyone outside of a politician had ordered these beatings, they would already be in the middle of a criminal trial. Obviously a regular citizen can't do it. Cops can't do it (imagine how a judge would handle the case if the cop admitted he got the confession by banging the guy's head against the wall and then drowning him within an inch of his life ... 183 times). As the former Bush officials claim that they are being investigated because of politics, the reality is the exact opposite. Politics is their best friend and their only refuge.
Doesn’t this warrant a barf alert? You falling down on the job there?
In a world a generation or two ago, he would have been executed during one of these extreme interrogations...!
The logic is these guys are terrorists and have no protection under the Geneva Convention or our Constitution.
“I don’t know how many times we smashed his head against a wall, slapped him in the face, put him in a stress position in a freezing room and/or put him in a coffin sized box in extreme heat.”
My, my, my, this liberal must be thinking of what he wants to do to Bush. He has a very vivid imagination.
Not near enough...
o \|/ / \
And what if we’d cut his head off on videocamera while chanting prayers of greatness?
IF IF IF.
Might as well ask “What if we HAD tortured him?”
Hey, stupid, that’s why this stuff isn’t torture - KSM was never in any real danger of physical damage, certainly not death.
The only travesty about KSM is that he’s still alive after he plotted and executed a plan that killed nearly 3,000 Americans who had done nothing to him.
Any moonbat who feels otherwise obviously didn’t have to jump from a 110-story building burning with jet fuel and pieces of their fellow coworkers strewn about. (Obviously).
Were they in that position, I’ll bet they’d sing a different tune and be right on board with waterboarding this jihadist. And then some.
I'd have had a cigar and a glass of cognac to celebrate.
How about you, Cenk? Would you've cried for this mass murderer of American civilians?
They aren't anti-torture. They are against conservatives and Republicans. Plain and simple.
Stenk Xuyger?
Wonder if he’s sawed any heads off lately?
One man’s torture is another man’s fetish. (It’s why Chrissy gets all leg tingly when reading these stories)
We do it to our own soldiers during training exercises. Did we execute the trainers?
I stopped reading at that point. According to a CIA whistleblower the waterboarding technique was used at Club Gitmo a total of three times, the last time over 5 years ago. The author of this drivel is a liar.
How about this little drama queen is exagerating the "horrors" of Gitmo (as did the Newsweak reporter who spun fraudulent tales of korans dipped in toilets) in ways that embolden the enemy and give the reason to wage jihad against the US and the new Iraqi government?
There was some woman who wrote of America's "rape" of other cultures and that was translated into literal RAPE and it was responsible for a deadly riot.
Words mean things. Treason is not protected speach. Neither is libel, slander, perjury, or inciting a crowd to riot.
3 people.
Jump 70 stories from a burning building, “Cenk” and then get back to us
A Gitmo detainee could be waterboarded in the morning, and in the afternoon start at second base for the terrorist intramural softball team. Liberal Democrat sissies have no clue what real torture is.
However, if he was waterboarded over 175 times, it didn’t seem to be very effective each and every time it was applied as a technique. It’s more the cumulative nature.
Somebodies lyin.
I don’t know how many times we smashed his head against a wall, slapped him in the face, put him in a stress position in a freezing room and/or put him in a coffin sized box in extreme heat.
Either that, or thinking of last weekend with his dominatrix.
KSM was waterboarded for 1.5 minutes. It was a simulation; his face was covered and water poured thereon. It did not occur 187 times, and did not drown him within an inch of his life, as accused.
Sleep deprevation may not run more than 7.5 days, and only 3 times has gone more than 4.
Headbanging is against a fake wall designed to give the psychological illusion without the harm. Professional wrestlers do this (fake floor) all the time.
Slaps "entails only mild uses of force and does not cause any significatn pain or lasting harm." Again, it's the psychology, not the harm.
Likewise, stress & temperature positions are rather limited, monitored to remain well within limits of harm.
the right-wing argues that it doesn't matter because none of this is torture.
Exactly. It's not. Read the memo BEFORE blathering on about it. What's described is certainly uncomfortable, and messes with psychological instinctive predispositions, but ultimately is little more than frat hazing. People do this all for FUN and nobody gets arrested.
Police can use sleep deprevation when you are undergoing questioning, they can put you in the "hole" or solitary confinement. There are all sorts of things they can legally do.
The world would be a slightly better place. Unfortunately, he didn’t. Next question.
Playing "Free Bird" 24/7 at 100 DB.
I love Skynyrd, but I would have told them everything in six hours, tops.
There are numerous other songs that would work the same magic.
Considering that he is a murdering terrorist, I would have celebrated his death. But, if these libtards want to drag everything out in the open, I say let it all out. I am opposed to political commissions or congressional political show trials. though. If there is to be anything I want jury trials, one in which the jurist take an oath to be impartial.
“If anyone outside of a politician had ordered these beatings, they would already be in the middle of a criminal trial.”
OK, the presidents takes an oath to protect the people of the United States. He is also the Commander-in-Chief. Our country is at war with terrorists, ones who are not acting on the behalf of any conference.
To me, it would be a crime to NOT give approval for these techniques.
My HS wrestling coach smacked everyone upside the head with both hands prior to every match. It was his way of "shaking out the cobwebs".
I doubt he could do that in today's world.
As to most of these other forms of torture, it almost compares to the "four days of fun" we had at ROTC spring camp at Fort Lewis, WA. The real torture was that I never had the opportunity to partake in Spring Break activities enjoyed by "regular" students.
The only thing I would regret is any information we failed extract.
Why don’t these “indviduals” ever worry about the people these Islamicist scum murder?
Cleary he missed my fraternity parties.
OK repeat after me, 183 times:
Cause Im as free as a bird now,
And this bird youll never change.
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I cant change.
Lord help me, I cant change.
Dean Wormer: “Out with it, boy!”
The left would mourn if Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Jim Jones, and Charles Manson died. Oh wait, they are their idols.
“So, let me ask you this — what if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had died during one of these extreme interrogations?”
Then we wouldn’t be wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money to house and feed him.
The most I could stand is 50 times, tops.
And if KSM tried to play air guitar, he'd get a dandy case of carpal tunnel syndrome.
I wonder if KSM would try and change a verse or two:
"Allah knows, I can't change"
Gotta run, someone from CAIR is knocking on my door...
Well since their were doctors onhand 100% of the time when these thigns were being done I’d ay that there was a 100% chnce that he would never die from any of this.Now I wish that everyone out there that feels this way one day is mugged by reality!
Wusses with police power. Not good.
Today, in an Iranian or Burmese prison the prisoner would both be subjected to worse and executed (Just to name two of many locations).
It would be one less phychopathic killer in the world. I'm failing to see the problem with it.
Eewww.
what if he got caterpillar poisoning?
Exactly! It doesn’t matter what the result was, as long as a Republican was in office, it’s evil.
“What if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Had Died?”
uhmmm... there would be one less terrorist in the world?
It’s unfortunate he didn’t get the same kind of caterpillar poisoning Rachel Corrie got.
“Here is a perfectly plausible hypothetical: He’s had no sleep for eight days, he’s exhausted and stuffed in a tiny box in a sweltering hot room with insects crawling all over him, we take him out, smash his head against the wall three times and then waterboard him for the 162nd time. And boom he goes into cardiac arrest and dies on the spot. Did we just torture him to death or was his death just coincidental? Was his interrogation so obviously clean that it doesn’t even require an investigation?”
You see, to a leftie-libber, fiction, in the form of a hypothetical example is the best way to express a “truth”, yet her hypothetical example has nothing of the truth about how the “enhanced techniques” were conducted.
In the first place, at no time were the different techniques applied in the repetitive sequential manner, non-stop until he “broke”, as she depicts.
The subjects fear of insect was used by placing him in a box with ONE SINGLE insect that would not bite or harm anyone, but WOULD play on the subjects fear.
The “head against the wall” maneuver is conducted against a false wall; a wall with its greatest deterrent being the smashing sound that is made when an object hits it, and it is set up, and used, so as the subject thinks (the sound) his head is being “smashed” when in fact it is not.
Nuff said about “waterboarding”, it’s not torture.
As to “cardiac arrest”, med personnel with cardiac resuscitation paddles were in the immediate vicinity and stood ready to “rescue” any subject whose “heart just couldn’t take” the stress and fear.
Her scenario is false, and so his her premise on why her scenario tells us anything important - it doesn’t.
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