Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack by Marc A. Thiessen
Posted on 05/16/2011 9:37:17 PM PDT by UniqueViews
"KSM figured out waterboarding. He figured out the limits," Marc Theissen, a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, said during a panel discussion at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. KSM "actually mocked his interrogators by holding out his arm and counting off the seconds with his hand. He knew exactly how far we could go and when the terrorists know how far you can go it's very very hard to break them."
Justice Department memos released by President Barack Obama indicate that the maximum duration for a single application of water to a terror suspect in the program authorized by President George W. Bush was 40 seconds.
Theissen faulted Obama not only for rejecting less confrontational techniques such as belly slaps and a low-calorie diet consisting solely of the Ensure nutritional drink, but for disclosing the military-approved techniques the government could and would use.
"The key to the success of breaking these people is that they can’t know what they’re facing. And if they do know, they can resist it," Theissen said.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Good on ol' KSM. He was a worthy enemy. However, I would have cranked the waterboardng up to 60, 90, 120 seconds, rather than it taking 183 attempts to break this SOB.
Use a thicker cloth, use more water, do it longer. Break the bastard.
Keep pouring until he breaks.
In this case probably ours. Torture (and that’s what it is don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s not just because no one is permanently injured or dead) is counter to everything we as a nation used to stand for. We didn’t do it during WW1 or WW2 even when it could have “saved American lives” so why do we do it now? And trust me, sooner or later this will be used on us, it’s only a matter of time.
Ensure? Oh Hell no! Whaddayawannaknow?
/johnny
Since when is drinking “Ensure” considered “torture” that “must be forbidden”?!
Slapping the name “torture” on everything, doesn’t make it so. Torture is what Saddam did to his prisoners, electrocuting them in their private parts, and so on, THAT’s torture.
Pouring water on someone for 40 seconds, making them sit naked, or having a dog bark at them, or horror of horrors, feeding them ensure drinks can hardly be considered even “enhanced” interrogation technique, much less “torture”.
Thirty days on Ex-Lax and water (drinking water) should do just about anybody.
I bet Danny Pearl would have preferred to be waterboarded. Ask John McCain how closely the North Vietnamese adhered to the Geneva Convention. The SS tortured and killed plenty of U.S. troops. The point is our enemies don't give a rip what rules we choose to conform to - they'll do to us whatever they feel is expedient.
“Pouring water on someone for 40 seconds, making them sit naked, or having a dog bark at them, or horror of horrors, feeding them ensure drinks can hardly be considered even “enhanced” interrogation technique, much less “torture”.”
So if they were doing that to you, you’d be OK with it? Is this how they interrogated POWs during WW2? Don’t cry when this leaks over to your local police station because it will. Who would have though that random searches of houses would be legal but evidently they are now (at least in Indiana now your state later).
On our side???? WHAT??? “We didn’t do it in WW1 or WW?” How the hell do you know that? “Sooner or later this will be used on us”. Like it hasn’t already? What the hell is wrong with you? Go troll back to the DUmp and take your liberal bleeding heart limp crap with you obama lover.
I have to agree with you. We didn’t need to torture during the previous waars, because we were already fighting all out. We need to now, because we restrain ourselves.....Isn’t that just weird?
This old timer agrees 100% with your thoughts. Lets roll!!
“The point is our enemies don’t give a rip what rules we choose to conform to - they’ll do to us whatever they feel is expedient.”
So I guess we’re on an equivalent moral standing to our enemies now? Are we really now the same as the Nazis, the VC and Islamic terrorists? Pathetic that we’ve fallen so far.
I refer you to post 8 by Flag_This:
“The point is our enemies don’t give a rip what rules we choose to conform to - they’ll do to us whatever they feel is expedient. “
And why do you consider there is a moral equivalent between POWs and terrorists?
RE> Who would have though that random searches of houses would be legal but evidently they are now (at least in Indiana now your state later).
I knew there was a reason I didn’t move to IA. Now I know what the reason was.
“So I guess we’re on an equivalent moral standing to our enemies now? Are we really now the same as the Nazis, the VC and Islamic terrorists? Pathetic that we’ve fallen so far.”
You are right. We shouldn’t hurt a hair on the terrorists’ cute little heads to prevent an attack on innocent civilians. Much better to be proud that we didn’t hurt any terrorists, and let them blow us up by the thousands at will. (in case anyone doesn’t recognize it, I am being sarcastic, but unfortunately “trapped_in_LA” isn’t)
“And why do you consider there is a moral equivalent between POWs and terrorists?”
A prisoner is a prisoner and should be treated like one. Terrorist or POW it doesn’t matter. My point is that we never did this before but now it is alright. And don’t think that this won’t “leak” over to being OK for ordinary prisoners sooner or later because it will. Something is either right or it’s not, using situational ethics tends to lead to a slippery slope that ends just like it did for the Nazis and the USSR.
Firstly, I reject your premise that waterboarding is torture - we use it on our own Special Forces guys during their training. Secondly, when you said "In this case probably ours" you implied that if we didn't "torture" our enemies then they wouldn't torture us. I simply pointed out that our enemies have never really cared what we do - they'll do whatever they feel is effective to get intel.
I have no use for true torture, but in a time where cities face weapons of mass destruction, I don't see any benefit to fighting by Marquess of Queensberry rules.
Wow, I have not been on in a long time.. seems like in the good old days, we did not allow trolls from DU to comment here. I see lots of them now. Is somebody taking a nap there at Freep Central?
Should starve them, then serve them several nice bacon dishes to end their ‘fast’. Wouldn’t have to tell them it was bacon laced until after they digested it.
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