Obama Addesses CIA
- Thread starter Hot Mega
- Start date
meesterperfect
Hiliary 2020
so we dunked the guy who planned sept 11 head under water a bunch of times for info and we are the bad guys, we made a mistake, and the PREZ is the one telling us.
Far out.
I like how he says we will defeat the enemy (the freedom fighters?) because we are the good guys.
now thats an effective strategy.
I can just imagine how a kid who lost his mom or dad on sept 11 feels when he hears how much hoopla and condemnation there is over dunking his mom or dads murderers head under water.
Far out.
I like how he says we will defeat the enemy (the freedom fighters?) because we are the good guys.
now thats an effective strategy.
I can just imagine how a kid who lost his mom or dad on sept 11 feels when he hears how much hoopla and condemnation there is over dunking his mom or dads murderers head under water.
He was right by releasing the memos. We need know what the Bush's cronies at the CIA did. Now if he would conduct an investigation and prosecute, but that'll never happen, unfortunately.
Well, the only problem is that if GWB had abandoned our membership to the Geneva Convention and gotten congress to repeal the ban on torture then there wouldn't have been a problem with waterboarding.
Why didn't he do that?
BTW, waterboarding has nothing to do with dunking someone's head. The subject is restrained, pressure is applied by one agent on the subject's chest making inhalation difficult, their mouth is gaged, while steady streams of water flow over their mouth and nose.
Having endured it as a part of military training, there is no question that it's torture.
i can't see how people continually miss the correlation between the horrible shit the US does around the world and with the way some people hate us...it befuddles me 
i can't see how people continually miss the correlation between the horrible shit the US does around the world and with the way some people hate us...it befuddles me
I couldn't disagree more. The good the US has done and contributed to the world FAR outweighs the combined wrong some attribute to us even if you multiplied that wrong by 100.
Surely waterboarding some terrorists, while against ours and international law wouldn't amount to committing wrong in the world IMO.
if you think waterboarding is the worst thing the US has ever done you've ignored or not heard a lot of news, we've established dictators (shah of iran), supported dictators (saddam hussein), trained terrorists (osama bin laden and others), dealt drugs (iran-contra), and much more especially if one gets into some of the things our corporations have done....so does any of this seem worse than waterboarding? or enough for people to be upset about?
The Paulinator
Spreading the seed
i can't see how people continually miss the correlation between the horrible shit the US does around the world and with the way some people hate us...it befuddles me
In countries that receive billions in foreign aid from the US they still hate America. I don't like this, you don't like this, but that's how it is. Humans do horrible shit to each other.
International law? Under the Geneva Convention combatants in civilian clothes are subject to summary execution. I say this not as a way of saying "kill 'em all", but to point out that the "rules of war" in this code are now pretty much archaic. There needs to be new international rules of engagement. (So that humans can have some sense of moral justification as they do horrible shit to each other)
Jagger69
Three lullabies in an ancient tongue
This was not a strategic statement today, MP. It was about policy and protocol. His message is that we will not deviate from either the tenets of the constitution nor the provisions of the Geneva Convention. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't see what is wrong about that message. As Hot Mega pointed out, we can't stand on both sides of the fence.
America stands for nothing if we abandon the principles upon which our nation was founded. What is there that separates us from those who would love to see us destroyed and all that we supposedly stand for if we are willing to sacrifice our core beliefs so easily? When that happens, the terrorists have already won.
Summary executions are never legal against uniformed combatants. That's why we've tried and convicted our own soldiers who were found to have summarily executed prisoners in their charge. Even when those combatants were not uniformed under a flag.
While they have been legal against those who were not soldiers under a flag in the past, that is no longer legal in theory.
In practice though, I can tell you that groups and units of special operators are not designed in most cases to ferry large numbers of prisoners. So you can take that for what it's worth.
However, there is a difference between summary execution and murdering a captive in your charge.
In either case, neither has anything to do with the planned execution of torture when it is in violation of the Geneva Convention and US Law.
The Paulinator
Spreading the seed
The point I was trying to put forth was that the rules are now archaic. People who complain about the "rights" under the Geneva Convention seemingly haven't read the "responsibilities" part.
Maybe it just seems that way to me:o
EDIT: On second thought, people in general are big on rights and kinda slack on the responsibilities. Some, anyway
Maybe it just seems that way to me:o
EDIT: On second thought, people in general are big on rights and kinda slack on the responsibilities. Some, anyway
That's odd "The Paul..." because the whole point of the Convention was to spell out the "responsibilities part" of it (when no ones looking) to the "rights part" of it.
The Paulinator
Spreading the seed
THAT's the point I was trying to make. And please, call me "The"
P.S. I like that "when no one is looking" part
It's more likely ...
I.e., once the Bush administration became aware of what was going on, they had the Justice Department define what their "interrogation techniques" were. After that, the CIA then documented when they did what, including using waterboarding only three (3) times.
Obama has published those documents about the Justice Department, which are after the alleged, "early stuff."
What I've constantly warned people about, and I still hold to, is that a lot of the "even worse" treatment had actually been going on since 1998. I don't think Clinton or W. knew those, only W. after the Justice Department tried to tame it with those policies.
Which means once you start going after W., you have to start going after Clinton, and many others. In reality, it's still questionable how much the Executive branch knew before these policies.
As far as these policies, they are still not even remotely as bad as people have repeatedly claimed they were, and are now eating their words. And in the case of waterboarding, it was only utilized three (3) times once these polices came out.
Again, a lot of Democrats don't want to go to the days before these policies. Because they'll find they go beyond just the W. administration. The question is how far.
The Justice Department policies were just the ones that finally set the policy of what the Executive Branch would allow. I don't like the W. administration for these policies, but I'm tired of people making it about 1 administration, when there has been a lot of crap going on since 1998.
And even with W. removed now, many policies are not being reversed. So far we've had the "does nothing" of Gitmo being "allegedly closed" in a year, various other tappings not only still going on, but possibly being expanded to target "racism" and "anti-federal" entities.
Not good. Not good at all. Which is why I constantly warn people not to blame just one administration, because the policy is typically multi-administration, with each increasing their usage. Don't push the rhetoric that "oh, 'our guy' is using them correctly."
I still cannot believe someone made that argument in another thread.
From everything timeline I've seen and everything I've read, many of these things were already going on before the Bush administration's Justice Department even set the "policies."
I.e., once the Bush administration became aware of what was going on, they had the Justice Department define what their "interrogation techniques" were. After that, the CIA then documented when they did what, including using waterboarding only three (3) times.
Obama has published those documents about the Justice Department, which are after the alleged, "early stuff."
What I've constantly warned people about, and I still hold to, is that a lot of the "even worse" treatment had actually been going on since 1998. I don't think Clinton or W. knew those, only W. after the Justice Department tried to tame it with those policies.
Which means once you start going after W., you have to start going after Clinton, and many others. In reality, it's still questionable how much the Executive branch knew before these policies.
As far as these policies, they are still not even remotely as bad as people have repeatedly claimed they were, and are now eating their words. And in the case of waterboarding, it was only utilized three (3) times once these polices came out.
Again, a lot of Democrats don't want to go to the days before these policies. Because they'll find they go beyond just the W. administration. The question is how far.
The Justice Department policies were just the ones that finally set the policy of what the Executive Branch would allow. I don't like the W. administration for these policies, but I'm tired of people making it about 1 administration, when there has been a lot of crap going on since 1998.
And even with W. removed now, many policies are not being reversed. So far we've had the "does nothing" of Gitmo being "allegedly closed" in a year, various other tappings not only still going on, but possibly being expanded to target "racism" and "anti-federal" entities.
Not good. Not good at all. Which is why I constantly warn people not to blame just one administration, because the policy is typically multi-administration, with each increasing their usage. Don't push the rhetoric that "oh, 'our guy' is using them correctly."
I still cannot believe someone made that argument in another thread.
Re: It's more likely ...
Even if you could cite evidence that it was a interrogation tactic prior to GWB...There is no evidence that it was ever sanctioned post Geneva until GWB got his justice department to define it as an acceptable practice.
A US president cannot put his government in the position of officially sanctioning torture....ever. That was amateurishly stupid of his administration.
Secondly, have you ever been waterboarded? I have, and it is just about as torturous an experience as you can go through....And I say this having experienced this at the hands of men I knew and under circumstances in which I knew I was in no real danger.
Claims by some that it doesn't amount to torture are at minimum, ignorant, intellectual dishonesty at most they're outright lies...I say all this to have you understand that if waterboarding isn't torture, nothing is.
It is torture, now the question is what do we do about it now that we've had an administration sanction it?
Even if you could cite evidence that it was a interrogation tactic prior to GWB...There is no evidence that it was ever sanctioned post Geneva until GWB got his justice department to define it as an acceptable practice.
A US president cannot put his government in the position of officially sanctioning torture....ever. That was amateurishly stupid of his administration.
Secondly, have you ever been waterboarded? I have, and it is just about as torturous an experience as you can go through....And I say this having experienced this at the hands of men I knew and under circumstances in which I knew I was in no real danger.
Claims by some that it doesn't amount to torture are at minimum, ignorant, intellectual dishonesty at most they're outright lies...I say all this to have you understand that if waterboarding isn't torture, nothing is.
It is torture, now the question is what do we do about it now that we've had an administration sanction it?
meesterperfect
Hiliary 2020
jag i see your p[oint.
hot mega yours also.
but i dont care.
let the cia do what they gotta do to protect the people of the us.
if that means using drastic tactics to obtain info so be it.
what else could they do? ask him politely what he knows?
use the good cop bad cop technique?
"I wanna go easy on ya but my partner wants to rip your head off.".
And although ive never been waterboarded (ive also never committed mass murder of men women and babies) I can imagine alot more extreme ways the Us could obtain info.
Like saddam and osamas boys do/did.
Why is the us held to a higher standard?
you must fight fire with fire, otherwise, your gonna lose.
I'm out, ive got better things to focus my energy on than condemning my country and pitying a guy who attacked it and killed my countrymen, civillians.
could of been me or my mom incinerated alive that day.
and i will never understand how when where this self hatred, guilt complex among the people of the US came from.
hate yourselves for the native americans, hate yourself for slavery, hate yourselves for dropping the bomb on japan, for removing hussien, for not being born in poverty. ect ect.
but it will be to our demise one day.
hot mega yours also.
but i dont care.
let the cia do what they gotta do to protect the people of the us.
if that means using drastic tactics to obtain info so be it.
what else could they do? ask him politely what he knows?
use the good cop bad cop technique?
"I wanna go easy on ya but my partner wants to rip your head off.".
And although ive never been waterboarded (ive also never committed mass murder of men women and babies) I can imagine alot more extreme ways the Us could obtain info.
Like saddam and osamas boys do/did.
Why is the us held to a higher standard?
you must fight fire with fire, otherwise, your gonna lose.
I'm out, ive got better things to focus my energy on than condemning my country and pitying a guy who attacked it and killed my countrymen, civillians.
could of been me or my mom incinerated alive that day.
and i will never understand how when where this self hatred, guilt complex among the people of the US came from.
hate yourselves for the native americans, hate yourself for slavery, hate yourselves for dropping the bomb on japan, for removing hussien, for not being born in poverty. ect ect.
but it will be to our demise one day.
torture doesn't work
yes, oddly enough, people will say whatever you want them to when suffering horribly
like 'i'm a witch! i'm a witch!'
These are examples of where we have supported someone or some cause instead of the alternative. It would be nice to avoid the internal politics of other countries as there are invariably different sides who disagree vehemently...just look at the divisiveness in our own country. But in many cases, you must engage other heads of state and in some cases it's a no win situation.
The Shah wasn't our creation. His family ruled Persia before we were ever involved with what is now Iran. We want to deal with people we can deal with. That's just a natural preference of anyone. Of course we're going to support the people we can deal with. Sometimes that won't be popular among their opposition.
We supported Hussein's Iraq over the Ayatollah's Iran, you're going to fault us for that?
We supported the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan of which OBL was a part of over the Russian occupation. That constitutes evil on the part of the US??
The US in an effort to coalesce others in the world around some common ground have made mistakes and miscalculations. But we're by no means the marauding scourge of the earth some try and make us out to be.
