Torture: getting Cheney to admit to the Tate murders...

Puppycow said:
Is that right? A full-blown 9-11 Truther? Didn't know that about him.
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Correct.

Wikipedia:
Questions regarding 9/11
In April and May 2008, Jesse Ventura, in several radio interviews for his new book, Don't Start the Revolution Without Me, expressed concerns about what he described as some of the unanswered questions of the September 11, 2001 attacks.[44] His remarks about the possibility that the World Trade Center was demolished with explosives were also repeated in newspaper and television stories following some of the interviews.[45]

Ventura was interviewed on the Alex Jones radio show on April 2, 2008, on the Opie and Anthony on April 8, 2008, and on the The Howard Stern Show on May 21, 2008, discussing his views on 9/11 with the shows' hosts.[46] He said that he felt that many unanswered questions remain, such as how World Trade Center Building 7, which was not struck by a plane, collapsed on the afternoon of 9/11 in a manner which resembled a well executed controlled demolition[47] Ventura stated:

"Two planes struck two buildings... but how is it that a third building fell 5 hours later? How could this building just implode into its own footprint 5 hours later - that's my first question - the 9/11 Commission didn't even devote one page to that in their big volume of investigation... In my opinion, there is no doubt that that building was brought down with demolition."[48]
He also expressed bewilderment at how the Twin Towers appeared pulverized to dust and how they fell at virtually free-fall speed, when no other massive steel-framed buildings had ever collapsed in this manner due to fire before.[45]
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I know he has also spoken at other truther events.
 
WildCat said:
His argument has been addressed a thousand times. Note where Ventura says the WTC fell "at the speed of gravity" and says if an object was dropped it would fall at exactly the same rate that the WTC collapsed. But as every single video of the event shows, large chunks of the building did indeed fall much faster than the collapse wave progressed.

Jesse doesn't understand what he is seeing, proof of diminished mental capacity.

That's just one example, of course.
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Um, yeah. Jesse Ventura is wrong about the WTC collapse.

Wait, isn't the discussion about waterboarding and the merits of torturing terror suspects?
 
ravdin said:
Um, yeah. Jesse Ventura is wrong about the WTC collapse.

Wait, isn't the discussion about waterboarding and the merits of torturing terror suspects?
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Why headscratcher4 framed the waterboarding discussion around Ventura is, well, a head scratch. Ventura's opinion on waterboarding cannot be separated from his track record of spreading bollocks. Since headscratcher4 has disappeared from the thread, his reason for selecting Ventura as a spokesperson on waterboarding, when there are much more credible sources, rather undermines the point of the OP.
 
Cicero said:
Since headscratcher4 has disappeared from the thread, his reason for selecting Ventura as a spokesperson on waterboarding, when there are much more credible sources, rather undermines the point of the OP.
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Who would you consider to be more creditable? Former military interrogators from two wars who denounce the use of torture for practical as well as moral reasons?
 
Puppycow,

I think the point was to illustrate how ineffective torture is, and how people will say anything to make it stop
 
Upchurch said:
Who would you consider to be more creditable? Former military interrogators from two wars who denounce the use of torture for practical as well as moral reasons?
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Neither. Fort Hunt interrogator Kolm's recollections didn't stand up to closer scrutiny and Ret. Maj. Arnold Kohn's remembrances of his time at Fort Hunt are evidence that threats of torture were de rigueur and also, that he doesn't know about what other methods were used.
 
INRM said:
Puppycow,

I think the point was to illustrate how ineffective torture is, and how people will say anything to make it stop
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I don't believe that anyone has ever denied that. We know that. But that doesn't mean that there was no useful intelligence gathered whatsoever either. We don't know because we don't have access to all the facts. We just have lots of screaming at each other, and claims (on one side) that it stopped a large scale attack on the Liberty Tower on the west coast, and claims (on the other side) that it did no such thing, and never does any good, ever. I don't see much rational debate here. I see lots of bias (both sides) guiding the thinking.
 
Upchurch said:
Okay, what about the more recent example?
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I read the July issue of The New Yorker back in 06.

http://www.lawrencewright.com/WrightSoufan.pdf

Soufan was definitely an asset especially in the interrogations of Fahd al Quso and Abu Jandal. The CIA even tried to recruit him away from the FBI. One of the most frustrating components of American intelligence is the petty rivalry between the CIA and the FBI. This is nothing new. During WWII, the OSS was denied intel from ENIGMA intercepts.

Only the CIA were allowed to use the enhanced techniques. If Soufan's methods would work on the three detainees that were waterboarded so much the better. But Soufan was not in the room when this occurred.

Matthew Alexander was in the USAF. He couldn't use the enhanced techniques either.

"Once an Army is involved in war, there is a beast in every fighting man which begins tugging at its chains... A good officer must learn early on how to keep the beast under control both in his men and in himself."

-- General George C. Marshall

Who better than Marshall knew that that this beast kept slipping its leash.
 
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Upchurch said:
Who would you consider to be more creditable? Former military interrogators from two wars who denounce the use of torture for practical as well as moral reasons?
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Or John McCain? We've already heard from the most credible people on the use of torture. Adding Jesse Ventura to the pile does nothing. People who are fine with water boarding the mastermind of 911, the guy behind the Cole bombing, and the guy who had Al Q's rolodex won't read what Jesse said and say "oh yeah, I didn't get it when a former POW like McCain said it, or many experts on the subject, but when a former pro-wrestler came out against it, wow, that spoke to me man".
 
Then, there's this to consider:

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I remember hearing on the news recently a case where a person was tortured left and right. They got nothing significant out of him.

An FBI came in interrogated him using ordinary tactics that didn't involve torture, and they got what they needed...
 
theprestige said:
On the other hand, as a means for extracting accurate information that can be subsequently confirmed through other means, such that the only way to stop the torture is to make testable claims that are true when tested, I can see waterboarding--if it's truly as horrendous as they say--being extremely effective.
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Um, if you can verify something through other means, why the hell do we need to torture someone?
 
Cicero said:
When it comes to waterboarding Ventura is "Talky Tina," when it comes to his true service record Jesse isn't so forthcoming.
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Because having something done to YOU in a controlled environment that can be stopped at any time is SO the same as killing someone in a war.

Analogy: Do you and your wife fight? Yes. Do you and your wife have anal sex? That's something a man keeps to himself. And YOU would say "Whoa, there goes his credibility - I doubt he's even married, since he's all Chatty Cathy about fighting but shut down tight about the sodomy."

I hope you get my point. If not, please enjoy the creepy feeling you get when you read my analogy.
 
A couple of points:

The laws against torture specifically make no exceptions in any situation, even for cases when you think it might be an effective way of getting information. So in deciding whether or not something (waterboarding) is an example of torture, the issue of effectiveness is irrelevant. (Just as it is irrelevant to what end I spend the money from a bank robbery is to a discussion of whether or not I committed the crime of bank robbery.)

Also, even if torture can sometimes give you information that can subsequently be validated, you can never know for sure that that's the ONLY way you can get that information.

Remember how the Unabomber case was solved? Imagine a hypothetical where investigators had someone in custody who they had very good reason to think had information that could solve the Unabomber case. They couldn't possibly know that this is the ONLY way to get that information. In fact, it could be that the Unabomber's brother was already about to pick up the phone. . . .
 
Whiplash said:
You are correct in that it doesn't only produce trustworthy information. What bothers me, still, is that some want to say that it never produces trustworthy info.
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What about those who say that even if it does produce trustworthy information occasionally, there is no way of knowing when that happens, which is functionally the same as never producing it?
 
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