I heard Thom yesterday talking about how "torture doesn't work." He's right in the sense that if your purpose with it is to get accurate, actionable intelligence from a prisoner, it doesn't work. But it doesn't thereby follow that the blanket statement "torture doesn't work" is true. Why has the Bush Administration started torturing detainees then, at Guantanamo, Abu Graib, and a network of foreign prisons? Is it simply because there are a lot of sadistic sociopaths in this Administration? I don't think so (although there may be some). It's part of a blueprint to create a police-state dictatorship here in the US.

Linked below is a talk by Naomi Wolf, author of "The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot" given October 11, 2007 at Kane Hall on the University of Washington.

This is a MUST see for all Americans concerned about the erosion of their civil liberties.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc

How democratic societies are closed down:
The Blueprint for Dictatorship in the US -- the 10 Steps

1) invoke an internal and external threat;
2) create a secret prison system outside the rule of law where people are tortured;
3) create a paramilitary force; (Blackwater operated in New Orleans & just got a $1 billion contract to operate in the US. The president can declare martial for any reason he now sees fit
4) create a surveillance apparatus to oversee and intimidate the entire population;
5) arbitrarily detain and release citizens; infiltrate citizen’s groups, break down trust between individuals;
6) military-industrial-media complex profits off the creation of an enemy external and internal;
7) make up lists of critics and dissidents; restrict travel
8) restrict the press, e.g., invocation of the espionage act; vocabulary of demonization expands;
9) recast dissent as treason;
10) declare martial law; the use of crony federal attorneys in the rigging of elections; electoral fraud—but elections continue to exist, merely corrupt. Judiciary still exists, but becomes corrupt; there are still academics, but they learn to be quiet; there are still newspapers, but they know what is allowable.

“We need a democracy movement now, rising up.... No time to waste, millions of people... When people start to wake up, that’s when they crack down harder... A national uprising to restore democracy... Not enough to impeach... Criminals must be put behind bars... Ordinary people must ... take on the role to restore democracy...the time to stand up is now”

quote:

Originally posted by memory_hole:
I heard Thom yesterday talking about how "torture doesn't work." He's right in the sense that if your purpose with it is to get accurate, actionable intelligence from a prisoner, it doesn't work. But it doesn't thereby follow that the blanket statement "torture doesn't work" is true. Why has the Bush Administration started torturing detainees then, at Guantanamo, Abu Graib, and a network of foreign prisons? Is it simply because there are a lot of sadistic sociopaths in this Administration? I don't think so (although there may be some). It's part of a blueprint to create a police-state dictatorship here in the US.

I understand what you mean and I would argue that it is part of intimidating the population as well albeit I don't think torture per se has to do with the American people. I think the bigger part is to send the world especially those Muslim potentates who sit on a whole lot of oil a clear message: "we are crazed murderous SOBs with no regard to human life, you better behave or else...".

This is the way empires operate. The romans had gladiator games every time a wealthy military officer died to show the world that they kill just for fun. It's for intimidation and it's mostly directed towards the enemy. I also found that in places where torture techniques are invented and the idea flourishes are usually places locked into ideological struggles between competing tyrannies: medieval Christian Hungary and later Transylvania fighting against a Muslim Ottoman onslaught, or medieval Spain liberating itself of Muslim occupation. It is never used to get information it's always used for propaganda: mostly to intimidate the enemy but also to keep your guys in line. It is a stupid technique because it's much more effective strategy to have the moral high ground nowadays because most democracies don't think that taking that high ground is a sign of weakness. the bushies conundrum is that they think the people they really want to intimidate are medieval beasts and need to be treated as such. I would argue that the bushies are medieval beasts and they enjoy it.

O christ, Another Dictatorship thread.

quote:

Originally posted by Loganthor:
O christ, Another Dictatorship thread.

I think it's because the senate judiciary committee is holding hearings to confirm the new attn general. I uploaded a short democracy now segment complete with a cool video montage on Immortal Technique's "Cause of Death".

Contact Leahy and tell him to say no to Michael Mukasey. If dems confirm a guy like this it means they are not standing up to the most horrific crimes of the Bush admin.
http://leahy.senate.gov/contact.cfm

quote:

Contact Leahy and tell him to say no to Michael Mukasey. If dems confirm a guy like this it means they are not standing up to the most horrific crimes of the Bush admin.

Which horrific crimes are you referring?

quote:

Originally posted by Loganthor:

quote:

Contact Leahy and tell him to say no to Michael Mukasey. If dems confirm a guy like this it means they are not standing up to the most horrific crimes of the Bush admin.

Which horrific crimes are you referring?

Medieval torture techniques like waterboarding.

quote:

I understand what you mean and I would argue that it is part of intimidating the population as well albeit I don't think torture per se has to do with the American people. I think the bigger part is to send the world especially those Muslim potentates who sit on a whole lot of oil a clear message: "we are crazed murderous SOBs with no regard to human life, you better behave or else...".

I agree; and it's not an either/or, but both. I think the message is very clearly, and even primarily, directed at the American people as well. Because let's face it: the Muslim world already knows "we" are crazed murderous SOBs with no regard for human life...They've known that for a long time. But the American people are not used to a jackboot nation, to the abolition of habeus corpus, to privatized armies patrolling our streets during times of social unrest and/or disasters.

It's like Naomi Wolf says: if I am a professor or a journalist and I hear of a professor who loses his job for being an outspoken critic of the war, perhaps I think twice about my own criticisms. And if I start hearing of journalists and professors who are held without charge, indefinitely and in isolation, there's a good chance I'll mute my criticisms. Torture and indefinite detention without charge, which are two powers that Bush has now arrogated to himself in the event of any "emergency" which he and only he declares, are most definitely designed to keep people from protesting too strenuously.

Watch the Wolf video. She's really done her homework on Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and others. There very definitely is a blueprint and BushCo is following it.

quote:

Medieval torture techniques like waterboarding.

Medieval Girl scouts would laugh at your notion.

Drawn and Quartered
The Rack
Strappando
Thumbs Screws
Iron Boot
Crocodile Shears (don’t look that up)
Burned at the stake
Whips, fire, Amputation, Iron Maidens ( we are not talking Friday Nights)

quote:

Originally posted by Loganthor:

quote:

Medieval torture techniques like waterboarding.

Medieval Girl scouts would laugh at your notion.

Hehe, spoken like a true conservative: uninformed and violently ignorant.
People break their arms and wrists as they involuntarily fight the restraints while waterboarded: it's so painful and scary. The toughest CIA agents can't take it for more than 14 seconds, and that's the mild form of it used in training on the "good guys".

It leaves permanent psychological damage which is the worst and longest lasting wound every veteran will tell you. And finally this is not done to people who were convicted or even charged with any crimes.

Waterboarding is exactly the type of torture that's against the USCMJ and the Geneva Conventions and any one defending it is on the wrong side of history.

quote:

The toughest CIA agents can't take it for more than 14 seconds, and that's the mild form of it used in training on the "good guys".

14 seconds??? Do you even know what waterboarding is? 14 minutes maybe. I am guessing you just like saying the term repeatedly to show off to your crazy wingnut friends.

Dont think I didn't notice you running away from the Presidential Power discussion a couple days ago. Questions too hard?

quote:

Originally posted by Loganthor:

quote:

The toughest CIA agents can't take it for more than 14 seconds, and that's the mild form of it used in training on the "good guys".

14 seconds??? Do you even know what waterboarding is? 14 minutes maybe. I am guessing you just like saying the term repeatedly to show off to your crazy wingnut friends.

Dont think I didn't notice you running away from the Presidential Power discussion a couple days ago. Questions too hard?

Hehe, you are a funny man, unlike you conservatives we liberals care about these pesky little things called "facts". let me introduce you to a few of them:

"According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess."

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=1322866

Just a reminder:

quote:

Originally posted by sszabo:

quote:

Originally posted by Loganthor:
O christ, Another Dictatorship thread.

I think it's because the senate judiciary committee is holding hearings to confirm the new attn general. I uploaded a short democracy now segment complete with a cool video montage on Immortal Technique's "Cause of Death".

Contact Leahy and tell him to say no to Michael Mukasey. If dems confirm a guy like this it means they are not standing up to the most horrific crimes of the Bush admin.
http://leahy.senate.gov/contact.cfm

Loganthor, are you saying you are okay with the US govt. practicing water-boarding and other forms of torture?

quote:

Originally posted by memory_hole:
Loganthor, are you saying you are okay with the US govt. practicing water-boarding and other forms of torture?

**Of course** he is! He has some infallible logic on his side:

1) The US does not torture.

2) If the US does something, whatever it is, it is NOT torture.

3) The US waterboards.

4) Ergo, waterboarding must NOT be torture.

See? So easy, even a Conservative can follow!

quote:

Memeryhole-
Loganthor, are you saying you are okay with the US govt. practicing water-boarding and other forms of torture?

quote:

Captain-
**Of course** he is! He has some infallible logic on his side:

1) The US does not torture.

2) If the US does something, whatever it is, it is NOT torture.

3) The US waterboards.

4) Ergo, waterboarding must NOT be torture.

See? So easy, even a Conservative can follow!

To me the word torture is highly ambiguous and a definition that continues to evolve. But in this case Captain is partially correct. I am OK with waterboarding as a military technique of extracting information from Foreign combatants. I do not believe is crosses the line of the definition of torture laid out by United Nations Convention on Torture.

The rest of Captains dog chasing tail… is really retarded.

quote:

Originally posted by Loganthor:
The rest of Captains dog chasing tail… is really retarded.

Definition of "retarded": "Stupid enough to hold an opinion other than mine."

quote:

Originally posted by Loganthor:
I do not believe is crosses the line of the definition of torture laid out by United Nations Convention on Torture.

http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

***********

Now, I expect you to pounce on that phrase "lawful sanctions." Meaning that if a government passes a law saying that _this_ is okay, than you'd think _this_ is okay, no matter what _this_ is. But what if the law reads, "Our interrogators may break bones and inflict disfigurements," or anything of the sort? Would you be good on that, as long as they put it in writing?

quote:

Definition of "retarded": "Stupid enough to hold an opinion other than mine."

The making and executing of WILD ASS ASSumptions

quote:

I do not believe is crosses the line of the definition of torture laid out by United Nations Convention on Torture

Yes I already read it a number of times.

Would you like me to repeat myself again?

quote:

To me the word torture is highly ambiguous and a definition that continues to evolve. But in this case Captain is partially correct. I am OK with waterboarding as a military technique of extracting information from Foreign combatants. I do not believe is crosses the line of the definition of torture laid out by United Nations Convention on Torture.

Well, I'm satisfied that waterboarding is torture. But I wonder why you are okay with this form of torture, or any other. First, as Thom and others have said, it doesn't work for gaining good information, because people under torture will say anything to get it to stop. So, from a purely pragmatic standpoint, what good is it? Secondly, if we give the govt. the okay to waterboard "foreign combatants," can we really be sure those same dehumanizing methods won't one day be used against US citizens?

In fact, Jose Padilla is a US citizen who was tortured until he lost his mind. So in fact there is no guarantee whatsoever these kind of techniques won't be used on US citizens. It is beyond me why any sane person would want his country to go down this road to barbarism.

From accuracy.org about Iran:

NOAM CHOMSKY
Available for a very limited number of interviews, Chomsky is author most recently of Interventions. He said today: "When we or our allies and clients carry out terror (or aggression), it's the justified use of force (for stability, self-defense, etc.). When some official enemy does the same thing, it's terror (or aggression). It's independent of the form of government. Nicaragua in the 1980s had an elected government (free election, closely monitored and approved by international observers, etc.), but the U.S. opposed the election and wanted to overthrow the government, so it was supporting or carrying out terrorism; the U.S. had an elected government and was condemned by the World Court, but it was not terrorism. ...

"Palestinians have a free elected government (monitored elections, endorsed by international observers, etc.), but they voted 'the wrong way,' and the governing party is on the official terrorism list. When the Reaganites decided that Saddam Hussein would be their close friend and ally in 1982, they removed Iraq from the list of states supporting terror (and sent Rumsfeld to firm up deals on supplying aid, including means to develop WMD); there was an empty spot on the list, so they added Cuba, perhaps because U.S.-backed terror against Cuba had peaked in the preceding years. And so it continues, without end."
More Information

MUHAMMAD SAHIMI
Sahimi is professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California. His articles on the U.S., Iran and Iran's nuclear program include "The follies of Bush's Iran policy" which he co-wrote, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.

Sahimi said today: "The Iranian leadership is currently badly fractured. It is divided into three groups: the hardliners led by President Ahmadinejad; the conservatives represented by Ali Larijani (Iran's former chief nuclear negotiator), and the pragmatists, led by former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. The latter two groups favor negotiations, and even temporary suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment program, if Iran gets some tangible results in return, whereas the hardliners want to go ahead with the enrichment program at full speed. By [the U.S.] giving special designation to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and the Quds forces and putting extreme pressure on them, the hardliners will gain the upper hand, because they will point to this as the irrefutable evidence of the U.S. hostility, lack of interest in negotiated solution, and the desire for regime change."
More Information

CARAH ONG
Ong is Iran Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation and is writing regularly on the subject. She said today: "One thing that is particularly troubling about this move is that the administration is portraying it as part of a diplomatic effort. Let's be clear: these moves, as well as increased unilateral sanctions, are punitive measures. The Bush administration has not and is not engaged in any sustained or strategic diplomatic initiative with Iran."
More Information

GARETH PORTER
Investigative journalist Porter has just written the piece "U.S. Military Ignored Evidence of Iraqi-Made EFPs," which states: "When the U.S. military command accused the Iranian Quds Force last January of providing the armor-piercing EFPs (explosively formed penetrators) that were killing U.S. troops, it knew that Iraqi machine shops had been producing their own EFPs for years, a review of the historical record of evidence on EFPs in Iraq shows."
More Information
Ahmadinejad was misquoted on his statements about Israel and he does not represent Iran's people. Iran is about the only one in the neighborhood without a nuke...Israel has 'em., India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia. What difference is one Iranian nuke to a nation with hundreds and hundreds. Iran does not have the capability to deliver a nuke to America anyway. WE CAN CERTAINLY LIVE WITH A NUCLEAR IRAN. Iran refused to use WMD against Iraq even though Iraq was using them against Iran. Iran refused saying it was "inhumane". America wouldn't have refrained from using them. Iranians are not suicidal...Cheney is insane and obsessed with power.

quote:

Well, I'm satisfied that waterboarding is torture. But I wonder why you are okay with this form of torture, or any other. First, as Thom and others have said, it doesn't work for gaining good information, because people under torture will say anything to get it to stop. So, from a purely pragmatic standpoint, what good is it? Secondly, if we give the govt. the okay to waterboard "foreign combatants," can we really be sure those same dehumanizing methods won't one day be used against US citizens?

In fact, Jose Padilla is a US citizen who was tortured until he lost his mind. So in fact there is no guarantee whatsoever these kind of techniques won't be used on US citizens. It is beyond me why any sane person would want his country to go down this road to barbarism.

While I completely agree with you that Barbaric torture generally is ineffective. The Rack, jumper cables, Iron Maidans, etc. I also Realize asking nicely does not generally get the desired result either. I also Accept the trueism of "the road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions" Which also applies to Government welfare programs, but that is for another thread.

I do not believe waterboarding rises to the definition of severe Pain and suffering. Nor do I think McCain Bill Definition is anywhere in the Ball park of Reasonable.

quote:

Originally posted by Loganthor:
While I completely agree with you that Barbaric torture generally is ineffective. The Rack, jumper cables, Iron Maidans, etc. I also Realize asking nicely does not generally get the desired result either. I also Accept the trueism of "the road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions" Which also applies to Government welfare programs, but that is for another thread.

I do not believe waterboarding rises to the definition of severe Pain and suffering. Nor do I think McCain Bill Definition is anywhere in the Ball park of Reasonable.

You are so full of shit it's not even funny anymore: now you are a armchair interrogator too?! It's a matter of what you believe? Screw the facts, right?!

Waterboarding is torture and as such it's against US and international law. US military personnel went to prison when caught doing it in Vietnam.

Of course the nazis also "redefined" the law so torture was just a "technique". How disgusting. Is this what "conservative principles" have become nowadays: anti american nazi crap?!

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1356870