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

[Upchurch]

I think that there are plenty of means that are not justified by the ends.

For example?

Your continued insistence that your beliefs are so obviously true that you don't need to explain or justify them to me, and that I should simply trust your opinion on faith, is getting very frustrating.

That isn't what I'm saying at all. I'm more than willing to argue my position, but to do so, there has to be some common ground, a basis upon which we both agree that I can start building an argument. So far, you've excused every example I've given as justifiable give the right circumstances.

If you can give me a concrete example of a means that cannot be justified by the ends to which it is put, I might have something to work with.

 

[Upchurch]

What. Makes. Torture. SPECIAL?

Short answer: Defenseless. Captive.

 

[theprestige]

.
If you torture the information out of him, how do you know it's THE information, and not something that will divert your attention from the actual event intended?

I think it's entirely reasonable to assume that any interrogation using torture is likely to be an iterative process.

I do not think it's reasonable at all to conclude that because it's likely to be an iterative process, interrogations using torture should be categorically prohibited.

There are plenty of iterative processes that we do not ban. Warfare, for example, or criminal investigation. Hostage negotiation. Software development.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "did he just compare torture to software development?" The answer is, no, I did not. I pointed out that when you bring up characteristics torture has in common with other things, you are, in fact, comparing it to those things.

If you want to argue that software development should be permitted, and that torture should be banned, I think you'll get along much better by dwelling on the differences between the two things, rather than their similiarities.

I'm not interested in what makes torture mundane. I'm interested in what makes it special. My apologies. I guess I should have made that clear.

Oh, wait. I already did.

.
We, the United States of America, aren't supposed to be a "ratbag government".
Our behavior can't regulate any other government, but it should be able to -influence- those that have similar high-minded intentions of decent human behavior.

This is a massive goalpost-shift. The claim I was rebutting was that a total ban on torture would encourage ratbag governments not to do it. Are you abandoning that claim?

 

[theprestige]

For example?


That isn't what I'm saying at all. I'm more than willing to argue my position, but to do so, there has to be some common ground, a basis upon which we both agree that I can start building an argument. So far, you've excused every example I've given as justifiable give the right circumstances.

If you can give me a concrete example of a means that cannot be justified by the ends to which it is put, I might have something to work with.

My problem is, I'm not sure I have such an example in mind. That's why I'm here, in this thread, asking the questions I'm asking.

But let me see if I can find some common ground for us. Would you agree with the following propositions?

• Human life is, for whatever reason, extremely valuable.
• Indeed, this value is so great that harming another human, either physically or mentally (or spiritually, if you happen to believe in such things) is almost never justifiable for any reason.
• There are, however, some situations in which harming another human is, in fact, justifiable.
• Killing your wife to put a stop to her cheating on you with another man is definitely not one of those situations.

Assuming you agree, does that give you something to work with? If not, what about this?

Short answer: Defenseless. Captive.

What is it about the "defenseless captive" that trumps all other possible factors?

For example, consider the similar situation of a civilian in a war zone. They are, effectively defenseless and "captive". As a general rule, we make every effort to avoid harming them. And yet we also acknowledge that there are some situations in which we are willing to accept their harm as the lesser of two evils. Truly, the other evil must be great indeed, to tip the balance this way, but it does happen. And we do make exceptions.

So much for the similarities between the two scenarios. I've brought them up over and over again in this thread. Over and over again I've pleaded for someone to explain the differences to me.

 

[I Ratant]

...

This is a massive goalpost-shift. The claim I was rebutting was that a total ban on torture would encourage ratbag governments not to do it. Are you abandoning that claim?

.
There is no way what the US does can encourage a "ratbag" government to change its policies.
Other than invade, and we see how well that works.
Even replacing one set of ratbags with another fails miserably QED.. Chile for one.
The US is just plain different from most of the rest of the world...those in the 3rd world, say.
Adopting their behaviors in human rights abuses and ethical lapses is not something the US is expected to do (by some of us).
In theory, we have learned from history about those things.

 

[I Ratant]

...

What is it about the "defenseless captive" that trumps all other possible factors?

For example, consider the similar situation of a civilian in a war zone. They are, effectively defenseless and "captive". As a general rule, we make every effort to avoid harming them. And yet we also acknowledge that there are some situations in which we are willing to accept their harm as the lesser of two evils. Truly, the other evil must be great indeed, to tip the balance this way, but it does happen. And we do make exceptions.

So much for the similarities between the two scenarios. I've brought them up over and over again in this thread. Over and over again I've pleaded for someone to explain the differences to me.

.
Making every effort to avoid harming the civilians is quite different from taking those civilians and deliberately subjecting them to torture.
A number of those prisoners in Gitmo are said to be victims of inter-tribal animosities, not participants in insurgency against the invaders.
These can be tortured to death, and they can never "tell the truth" that the torturers are looking for.
They don't KNOW the truth, other than the total moral injustice of their position, and there is no way except by death to get out of it!

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

So... the difference between torture and mass slaughter is that torture isn't mass slaughter?

Well yes. . . and vice versa. There are similarities between the two, but there are also differences. The topic of this thread is torture, not mass slaughter.

And you're okay with allowing exceptions for mass slaughter because it isn't torture?

No. Not in the least. I'm also against allowing exceptions for many other crimes that aren't torture. Your logic here is wrong. (This is O.T. but if you're pressing me for my personal beliefs, I am a pacifist opposed to all violence. That too is not the topic of this thread.)

But in fact you refuse to actually explain why torture doesn't qualify for an exception, in your opinion. Let's review:

Hold the phone! I call shenanigans! In the same breath you're saying I refuse to explain this point, and then you proceed to list your take on 4 lines of argumentation that you say I made. So your claim that I refuse to explain this point is a flat out, bald-faced lie. It is a falsehood which you contradict yourself.

We can't allow exceptions for torture because then people who don't care about the law will use our righteous exceptions to justify their own evil acts. But people who don't care about the law will commit those evil acts regardless of our policies. You have yet to reconcile this conundrum.

It's not a conundrum. You seem to think there is a stark and discernible difference between well-intentioned good guys and well-intentioned bad guys. The problem is, if the international community has to take your word for it that you are one of the well-intentioned good guys who have a legitimate justification for torture, then you have to extend the same assumption to others, and there is effectively no ban on torture. Instead, everyone is on the honor system.

ETA: I do not share your faith in human nature. I think there are some very dishonorable people in positions of authority all over the world. I also think some people are honorable, but misguided (like religious zealots who believe what they are doing is good and moral and justified by an good end).

We can't allow exceptions for torture because torture doesn't work with 100% certainty. But nothing works with 100% certainty, outside of simple arithmetic. We allow exceptions all the time, for making great expenditure at great risk without 100%certainty of success. You have yet to reconcile this conundrum.

The business of pointing out that you can't know for certain that torturing someone is the only way to get information that will save lives is a specific refutation of the arguments for torture based on hypotheticals that begin by stipulating a situation where you know that torturing someone is the only way to save a bunch of lives. It is not an argument I have offered for why there should be no exceptions to the ban on torture. It is a refutation of an argument made in favor of torture.

We can't allow exceptions for torture because torture is really, really mean. But we allow exceptions for really, really mean things all the time. Mass slaughter, for example, which is arguably much meaner than torturing a single indivual. You have yet to reconcile this conundrum.

Once again, arguments of the following form:

a is like b waterboarding is like mass slaughter
b is not torture mass slaughter is not torture or more specifically mass slaughter is not wrong for all the same reasons torture is wrong
therefore a is not torture therefore waterboarding is not torture or waterboarding is not wrong​

are flawed.
I do happen to believe that mass slaughter is also wrong and illegal, but not for the same reasons I believe torture is wrong and illegal.

We can't allow exceptions for torture because the law prohibits them. But laws can be changed. The law does not determine whether a thing is right or wrong; only whether it is permitted or punished by society. You have yet to reconcile this conundrum.

Even if the people who committed torture during the Bush administration successfully lobbied to get the U.S. to renounce the C.A.T. and to change the U.S. Code to make torture legal, it would not change retroactively. We would still be obliged by the C.A.T. to prosecute these crimes. BTW, to my knowledge there is no effort to renounce the C.A.T., so that's not really what the debate is about. Again, there is no "conundrum" in pointing out that part of the moral decision to commit torture is that we agreed to the law that says torture is always illegal no matter what the circumstances. It is in fact part of the moral decision. (If you want to argue that Bush and company were practicing civil disobedience you would need to come up with at least some evidence that that's what they were trying to do. And even so, part of civil disobedience is challenging the law in court and accepting the punishment of what you consider to be an unjust law in an effort to change the law.)

When pressed to reconcile these conundrums, you fall back on the empty argument that torture is different, somehow.

There is no conundrum. Torture is not different than mass slaughter "somehow". It is different in nearly all its particulars. About the only thing it has in common is that it is the intentional infliction of severe pain (arguably, since slaughter can happen painlessly) by a government agent. It differs in that its purpose is not for extracting information or confession or for punishment and it is not done on a person in the agent's custody.

And to this you've now added the novel argument that we can't even compare torture to anything else, because nothing else is torture.

That's a complete mischaracterization of the discussion. I'm just pointing out that arguing that mass slaughter isn't wrong or illegal for all the same reasons torture is wrong and illegal doesn't say anything about whether torture is wrong and illegal. (Nor does it follow that I think there are exceptions to bans on the mass slaughter of civilian populations. I'm merely pointing out that that is an entirely different topic. I also don't condone any exceptions to laws against rape, but rape is wrong and illegal for different reasons than torture is wrong and illegal too.)

What is it about the nature of torture, that makes it ineligible for exceptions?

I've answered this question many times already, including in this very post above. I know you say I'm unwilling to explain my reasoning, but we all know that that's a lie.

But be warned: If your argument is that the nature of torture is something common to the nature of many things (e.g., that torture is a really mean thing to do to someone), then I'll consider it legitimate to compare to torture other things that share its nature, until you come up with something unique to torture, that makes it ineligible for exception.

Go right ahead. I will simply repeat what I've said over and over again. Arguments of the following form:

A is like B
B is not torture (or B is not wrong or always illegal)
There for A is not torture (or A is not wrong or always illegal)​

is bad logic.

 

[theprestige]

(This is O.T. but if you're pressing me for my personal beliefs, I am a pacifist opposed to all violence. That too is not the topic of this thread.)

I strongly disagree. I think this is supremely on topic. The fact that you are opposed to all violence as a matter of personal principle, and would as a matter of personal principle reject any proposed justification for any violence; entirely resolves our dispute as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not here to try to convince you to renounce your commitment to non-violence. If you had simply pointed out at the beginning that, as a pacifist, you are opposed to torture just as you are opposed to all other forms of violence, much vexation might have been avoided on both our parts.

My questions are for those who, like me, make exceptions for violence in some cases, but not in others. For those who make no exceptions for violence in any case, I have no questions at all, only respect.

 

[theprestige]

.
There is no way what the US does can encourage a "ratbag" government to change its policies.
Other than invade, and we see how well that works.
Even replacing one set of ratbags with another fails miserably QED.. Chile for one.
The US is just plain different from most of the rest of the world...those in the 3rd world, say.
Adopting their behaviors in human rights abuses and ethical lapses is not something the US is expected to do (by some of us).
In theory, we have learned from history about those things.

I agree wholeheartedly with all of this.

Does this mean, then that we also agree that "influencing ratbag governments" is not a rational argument in favor of categorically banning torture?

 

[theprestige]

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Making every effort to avoid harming the civilians is quite different from taking those civilians and deliberately subjecting them to torture.
A number of those prisoners in Gitmo are said to be victims of inter-tribal animosities, not participants in insurgency against the invaders.
These can be tortured to death, and they can never "tell the truth" that the torturers are looking for.
They don't KNOW the truth, other than the total moral injustice of their position, and there is no way except by death to get out of it!

I've been trying to avoid guessing at what people are actually trying to argue in this thread, but I'm not sure what else I can do at this point. Please let me know if I've misunderstood the point you're trying to make here.

You seem to be arguing that while it is possible to sort terrorist insurgents from innocent victims ("A number of those prisoners in Gitmo are said to be victims of inter-tribal animosities, not participants in insurgency against the invaders"), those charged with their custody cannot be relied upon to do so.

But there are many situations in which we are sufficiently confident in the ability of our agents to sort the innocent from the guilty, and treat each individual appropriately.

Thus, your argument seems to me to be more an argument about methodology, rather than an argument about banning torture outright.

Unless you mean that there is something special about torture, that no conceivable methodology could possibly guarantee an acceptable level of accuracy in its application...

... Or unless this whole argument is a sidetrack, and what you really mean to be arguing is that no conceivable excuse could possibly justify torture, regardless of the accuracy of the sorting method.

 

[I Ratant]

I've been trying to avoid guessing at what people are actually trying to argue in this thread, but I'm not sure what else I can do at this point. Please let me know if I've misunderstood the point you're trying to make here.

You seem to be arguing that while it is possible to sort terrorist insurgents from innocent victims ("A number of those prisoners in Gitmo are said to be victims of inter-tribal animosities, not participants in insurgency against the invaders"), those charged with their custody cannot be relied upon to do so.

But there are many situations in which we are sufficiently confident in the ability of our agents to sort the innocent from the guilty, and treat each individual appropriately.

.
The existence of any number of betrayed "not-from-our-tribe" persons at Gitmo says that the agents couldn't detect the difference, although the tactic of having someone else eliminate your enemies is centuries old.
.

Thus, your argument seems to me to be more an argument about methodology, rather than an argument about banning torture outright.

.
It IS the methodology that is faulty in these instances, but that is not the sole problem.
A lack of knowledge of the cultures involved and failing to appreciate there are substantial differences show to me an ignorance in the entire chain of command.
.

Unless you mean that there is something special about torture, that no conceivable methodology could possibly guarantee an acceptable level of accuracy in its application...

... Or unless this whole argument is a sidetrack, and what you really mean to be arguing is that no conceivable excuse could possibly justify torture, regardless of the accuracy of the sorting method.

.
There is no conceivable excuse to inflict torture on prisoners.
None at all, for any purpose whatsoever.
We are locked in an unwinnable war in Iraq because our 'sorting method' failed to uncover the unreliability of the major source of the information, Curve Gall. He he was telling the people at our end what they wanted to hear , and these people disregarded every other indication that it was a pack of lies.
When the persons in charge have an agenda, the tendency to disregard any negative information towards that agenda is easily done.
That torture has no track record for getting any reliable information was disregarded by the fools that wrote those briefs recommending it, and the bigger fools that approved it.

 

[theprestige]

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The existence of any number of betrayed "not-from-our-tribe" persons at Gitmo says that the agents couldn't detect the difference, although the tactic of having someone else eliminate your enemies is centuries old.

You misunderstand my point.

For example: We arrest suspected criminals all the time, and then apply a sorting method to determine which are actually innocent and which are truly guilty.

Very few people argue that because we let "any number" of suspects go free, we should abandon the practice of arresting anybody in the first place.

It seems to me that rather than holding soldiers to a higher standard when it comes to detaining POWs, we should recognize that the battlefield, which is much more chaotic, and upon which there is neither the time, nor the resources, nor the skills to conduct a meticulous and open-ended investigation of each suspect prior to detention, requires a different approach altogether.

Historically, this was much simpler: Enemy soldiers--even guerrilla insurgents, for the most part--wore identifying uniforms. You found them, and you detained them. No trial. No appeal. No parole. No time limit. They were POWs until the war was over, and their parent nation had agreed to your conditions for their return (or you had agreed to theirs, depending on who won).

Nowadays, insurgents go out of their way to appear as much as possible like innocent bystanders, and invest heavily in propaganda campaigns to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the minds of their enemies, about the efficacy of the POW process.

I, however, have not reached the conclusion that because the problem has gotten more difficult, we should give up altogether on trying to solve it. There are vigorous debates going on right now, at all levels of our society, about how we can improve our process rather than simply letting all our enemies go free.

But as you acknowledge further on, this question of methodology is actually irrelevant to you.

It IS the methodology that is faulty in these instances, but that is not the sole problem. A lack of knowledge of the cultures involved and failing to appreciate there are substantial differences show to me an ignorance in the entire chain of command.

To me, this is simply an extension of the methodology question. We know it's possible to train experts in a field, and we know it's possible to employ such experts. You're not the only person to whom these ideas have occurred. This is not an unsolvable problem.

But solving this problem is actually irrelevant to you, so we don't really need to discuss it here (although you're welcome to start another thread specifically about these methodological problems, if you like).

There is no conceivable excuse to inflict torture on prisoners. None at all, for any purpose whatsoever.

And now we get to the actual issue that I'm interested in. This is your true answer: Regardless of how reliable the methods of identifying terrorists among our detainees, "no conceivable" situation could possibly justify torturing them.

Alright, then. Fair enough.

I disagree, but before I go any further, may I ask: What is your position on "collateral damage"? Specifically, on the acceptance of civilian casualties during military operations? Do you believe that, like torture, "there is no conceivable excuse" for civilian casualties? Or do you believe that, unlike torture, there are in fact conceivable excuses?

 

[I Ratant]

"collateral damage" used to mean many many deaths in the civilian population.
Today's developed weapons reduce the probablity of that.. during the "shock and awe" period of the 2nd Gulf War, the citizens of Baghdad were pretty much assured they weren't the targets.. so much so that street lights remained on, normal business occurred during the attacks.
That some bombs etc went astray is in essence unpreventable, but the level of control of the weaponry was such that any incidents weren't intended because the weapons could be delivered so precisely.
The Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, I'd wager that was a deliberate "mistake" in targeting, to send a message.
The numerous civilian casualties in the UAV attacks in Afghanistan, these are unintended, but only avoidable by not attacking the target, whose location otherwise apparently isn't determinable.
At least we try.
The "kill them all, Allah will know his own" of the mass suicide murderers is "collateral damage" on a less wide scale, but equally indiscriminate fashion.
Coventry, Dresden, firebombing in Japan, these were both unavoidable due to the weapons technology and were terror targets, intended to sap the will to fight.
Didn't and doesn't work.
Hanoi and environs got off quite lightly, due to constraint about carpet bombing, public opinion, and a lack of military targets in the civilian areas deemed substantial enough to need wide-spread bombing attacks.
Truly "bombing them (North Vietnam) back to the Stone Age" by interfering with their manufacturing, transportation, and utilities had them on the ropes at least once, when the attacks were stopped, to give a "pause for peace", which was sensibly used by the North to re-arm, and prolong the war a few more years.
Being a civilian in a war zone sucks big time, no matter when or where the war is.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I strongly disagree. I think this is supremely on topic. The fact that you are opposed to all violence as a matter of personal principle, and would as a matter of personal principle reject any proposed justification for any violence; entirely resolves our dispute as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not here to try to convince you to renounce your commitment to non-violence. If you had simply pointed out at the beginning that, as a pacifist, you are opposed to torture just as you are opposed to all other forms of violence, much vexation might have been avoided on both our parts.

My questions are for those who, like me, make exceptions for violence in some cases, but not in others. For those who make no exceptions for violence in any case, I have no questions at all, only respect.

This is both dishonest and lazy. JoeTheJuggler's private views are irrelevant. JoeTheJuggler's arguments deserve an answer, regardless of his private views. It looks to me like you are just hunting around for an excuse to get out of this discussion, and you think you found one.

The following quotes come from a different post and were addressed to me:

This doesn't make sense to me.

"Ratbag" governments violate international human rights conventions--including the ban on torture--all the time. It seems pretty obvious to me that the ban on torture is totally worthless as a method for regulating evildoers.

Responsible, humanitarian people will generally be responsible and humanitarian in the use of exceptions to the rules. Irresponsible, inhumane people will generally make exceptions whenever it suits them, even if such exceptions do not exist in the rules as written.

The purpose of conventions like the Geneva Conventions and the C.A.T. is to make it in everyobody's interest to eschew torture, or the use of chemical weapons, or whatever. If everybody else is using them when they feel like it, you've got no incentive not to use them if you feel like it. If everyone else agrees not to use them and to make you an international pariah if you do, it's in nobody's interest to use them.

That's why the behaviour of the US government and it's compliant internet partisans are so morally revolting: not only are they torturing people, they are opening a mostly-closed door for other nations to torture people any time they feel like it.

We ban all sorts of horrible things in general, and yet still see a way to permit exceptions in particular situations.

We manage to avoid the slippery slope in all kinds of situations. We manage to find ways to permit good people to make principled use of an exception to some rule, while still punishing bad people for engaging in unprincipled exploitation of the same exception.

I keep asking, what makes torture so different from all these other rules, that it, uniquely, cannot ever be permitted, regardless of the situation.

Rather, it's in the set of things that in practise should never be permitted, because everyone is better off if we maintain an absolute prohibition. Much like crimes against humanity, or the use of chemical and biological weapons, or the development of nuclear weapons by non-nuclear-armed signatories to non-proliferation treaties, or capital punishment, it's just a really stupid idea to let nations engage in torture if they feel like it.

In some fantasy world of your own devising maybe capital punishment, torture, chemical weapons and nuclear proliferation are great ideas, or are less worse than the alternatives. In the real world they're really bad ideas.

I do think that you deserve to shoulder some of the burden of proof if you really want to drag us back into the 19th century. What evidence do you have that allowing nations to torture people extrajudicially whenever they feel like it makes the world a better place?

And the answer continues to be "because it just can't, that's why!"

That's never been anyone's position and you know it, which makes your straw-man particularly egregious.

I snipped a dozen or so repetitions of this straw man.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I strongly disagree. I think this is supremely on topic. The fact that you are opposed to all violence as a matter of personal principle, and would as a matter of personal principle reject any proposed justification for any violence; entirely resolves our dispute as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not here to try to convince you to renounce your commitment to non-violence. If you had simply pointed out at the beginning that, as a pacifist, you are opposed to torture just as you are opposed to all other forms of violence, much vexation might have been avoided on both our parts.

My questions are for those who, like me, make exceptions for violence in some cases, but not in others. For those who make no exceptions for violence in any case, I have no questions at all, only respect.

As Kevin said, my views on violence in general are off topic for this conversation. I think you're trying very hard to change the conversation away from the points that I made.

One doesn't have to be a pacifist to accept the arguments I've made that you're ignoring.

As I said, your argument wrt to mass slaughter (or dropping nuclear weapons) is flawed. It is of a pattern I keep seeing on these torture threads. It goes like this:

Torture is similar to mass slaughter
Mass slaughter is sometimes justified*
Therefore torture should sometimes be justified​

My point is that the similarities between two things doesn't argue that they are morally or legally the same. (Note well: pacifism forms no part of this point.) In fact, similarities between two things really can't argue that any other characteristic is necessarily the same. Both apples and oranges are fruits, but that doesn't mean they grown in the same climate or that both fruits contain the same amount of Vitamin C.

*The place where my pacifism came up is that when I pointed out that your reasoning was flawed, you asked if that means that I think mass slaughter is morally right. Do you understand that whether mass slaughter is morally or legally right doesn't argue anything about whether torture is morally or legally right? (In fact, I think they're both immoral and illegal, but my opinion of mass slaughter is irrelevant to the topic at hand.)

 

[theprestige]

As I said, your argument wrt to mass slaughter (or dropping nuclear weapons) is flawed. It is of a pattern I keep seeing on these torture threads. It goes like this:

Torture is similar to mass slaughter
Mass slaughter is sometimes justified*
Therefore torture should sometimes be justified​

My point is that the similarities between two things doesn't argue that they are morally or legally the same.

This is not quite my argument. Your version above ends with a conclusive statement. My version below ends with a question.

Torture is similar to mass slaughter*
Mass slaughter is sometimes justified
What makes torture different from mass slaughter, that it can never be justified?​

You (and others) seem to assume that I'm using this question as a trojan horse for sneaking a particular answer into the debate.

I assure you this is not the case. I am asking this question sincerely, because I have sincere doubts about the various answers I've considered. And where I have doubts you (and others) seem to have certainty. Why are you so certain that mass slaughter can be sometimes be justified, but torture never?

(*In that both are horrific atrocities that we all wish were never committed.)

 

[fishbob]

Torture is similar to mass slaughter*
Mass slaughter is sometimes justified
What makes torture different from mass slaughter, that it can never be justified?​

I am asking this question sincerely,

Simple answer: similar but not the same.

Sincerely? I don't thinks so.

Chimps are similar to humans.
Humans sometimes fly jet airplanes.
Sometimes it is OK by you for your commuter flight to be piloted by a chimp?

PS:
I am asking this question insincerely. Just being honest.

 

[I Ratant]

While waiting for cataract surgery today, I caught part of Obie's speech on torture and Gitmo... He said something like "Americans don't torture!".
And mentioned the reasons why -we- are above that crap.
Then Cheney slithered on to rebut, with his introducer complaining that Obie had taken a good time slot to make Cheney look bad.
Cheney is perfectly capable of doing that to himself.
C just regurgitated the usual excuses for the torture and Gitmo, beginning with his take on 9-11.
Fortunately, eye surgery intervened.

 

[I Ratant]

I don't know if this has been posted..
Hitchens getting waterboarded.
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58
.
Didn't take long to signal "STOP!!!", in a -benign- situation!

 

[DDWW]

Just a what -if;

President Obama's two children are kidnapped, along with 30 other school children and held in an unknown location. The terrorists holding them demand that the US nuke Israel or one child an hour would be beheaded.

The military has captured one of the terrorist. President Obama says to the folks holding him;

A) Do not mistreat him and show him every curtsey offered by military rules.

Or

B) Use whatever techniques you want, including enhanced interrogation, to save those (mine) children as soon as possible.


DDWW