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A 'Tortured' Debate
Opinion Journat ^ | November 12, 2005 | Staff

Posted on 11/12/2005 2:53:20 AM PST by yoe

If Osama bin Laden is alive and looking for signs of flagging U.S. will to fight the war on terror, he need look no further than our national debate about interrogating his compatriots and others who would do us harm.

Post-9/11, after all, it is hardly far-fetched to imagine a scenario in which our ability to extract information from a terrorist is the only thing that might prevent a bioterror attack or even the nuclear annihilation of an American city. And we know for a fact that information wrung from 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others has helped prevent further attacks on U.S. soil.

[snip]John McCain (R., Arizona) has pushed an amendment through the Senate that would effectively bar all stressful interrogation techniques. The danger for American security is that this would telegraph to every terrorist in the world that he has absolutely nothing to fear from silence should he fall into U.S. hands.

[snip]In Iraq at this very moment the military is dealing with a hardened al Qaeda wing headed by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, whose un-uniformed fighters are not entitled to Geneva Convention protections against aggressive interrogation. Neither the McCain Amendment nor the Administration's reaction to it send a message of resolve to win that intelligence war.

[snip]That such "torture" demagoguery can be successfully challenged was demonstrated earlier this year, when Amnesty International was forced to back down from its odious comparison of U.S. detention facilities to the Soviet gulag. We wish the Administration directly challenged its Congressional critics. The American people are wise enough to understand that we can't win the war on terror without good intelligence, and that there won't be good intelligence without aggressive interrogations.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 109th; 911; interrogation; september112001; terrorism; terrorists; torturebill; wot

1 posted on 11/12/2005 2:53:21 AM PST by yoe
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To: yoe

Ditto the whole post except for this sentence:

"The American people are wise enough to understand that we can't win the war on terror without good intelligence, and that there won't be good intelligence without aggressive interrogations."

OPINION: There are a lot of anti-American DUmmies that are willfully DEMwitted and could care less about what's good and right for America.
Then there are the DEM enablers like McCain, etc.


2 posted on 11/12/2005 2:59:45 AM PST by Cindy
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To: Cindy

I dunno. It's pretty rough to have been raised on a steady diet of "soviet gulags are bad", "reds torture our soldiers!", and other things back during the cold war and us being held up as the good guys because we DIDN'T engage in gulags and torture. Then turn around and set up a black prison in cuba where the civil rights we accord our prisinors can barely be differentiated from castros and then to have a debate about torturing prisoners...

I can see where a reasonable American would have more than a few passing second, third, and fourth, thoughts.


3 posted on 11/12/2005 3:08:45 AM PST by pcx99
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To: yoe

If we had a decent intelligence service to begin with this wouldnt even be a topic for discussion. IMO one of th biggest problems we have in this country is our inability to keep a secret. Today its TELagraph, TELaphone , and TEll a Congressman or Senator. No sooner does one of our people on the Hill get a secret than they run to the press with it. The CIA isnt any better.

Aggressive interviews with terrorists should be done in complete secrecy, no one without a need to know has to even know. Today it seems every Congresscritter feels they have a need to know. The Intelligence Committee only supplies intelligence to the media and our enemies.We arent being beaten by Islamic terrorists we are being beaten by the scheming power hungry politicians in our own country.


4 posted on 11/12/2005 3:10:23 AM PST by sgtbono2002
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To: yoe
The single best argument against torture is that it doesn't work. People who think otherwise may wish to aquaint themselves with history: Was everyone sent to the Gulag really a "wrecker," "saboteur," or "counterrevolutionary"? Is it possible they made such confessions just to stop the pain?

Many folks who wouldn't crack could be made to change their minds by the sight of their children being tortured. I ask every brave defender of torture on this thread: Would you extend it to children? If not, why? This is an unconventional war, ya know. The ol' standards don't apply.

5 posted on 11/12/2005 3:23:59 AM PST by Petronius (Hunter S. Thompson: Shine On You Crazy Diamond!)
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To: Petronius
Imagine the agents who have to second guess the use of sensory deprivation out of fear of being held liable for civil rights abuses to America's enemies!
6 posted on 11/12/2005 3:28:58 AM PST by endthematrix (Those who despise freedom and progress have condemned themselves to isolation, decline, and collapse)
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To: endthematrix

Sensory deprivation, eh? You couldn't get me to tell you my name with sensory deprivation. With actual torture, I'd tell you my role in JFK's shooting. That's the problem here.


7 posted on 11/12/2005 3:40:21 AM PST by Petronius (Hunter S. Thompson: Shine On You Crazy Diamond!)
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To: yoe

President Bush: "We do not torture."

Interrogator: "You heard the Commander-In-Chief!

"Now, will you bloody talk now or after we turn you over to the Israelis?"


8 posted on 11/12/2005 4:49:49 AM PST by Brian Allen (Patriotic, Immigrant & therefore Hyphenated-AMERICAN-American & Aviator by choice. Christian byGrace)
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To: Brian Allen

It amazes me how some one who is adamantly "pro-abortion" is against anything that will stress those international criminals who want to kill us! I fail to see the logic... If you are willing to kill babies, why can't you accept a little targeted torture?

Maybe we should be like the Demoncrats who think Abortion should be "Legal but Rare", and make torture the same... Any guess as to where that will lead?


9 posted on 11/12/2005 6:11:49 AM PST by coldoc
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To: coldoc

<< It amazes me how some one who is adamantly "pro-abortion" is against anything that will stress those international criminals who want to kill us! >>

Is that McCain?

If so, I believe 'Doctor Strangelove' McCain to be certifiably mentally ill and/or deficient and would thus neither try nor be bothered to figure him.

And nor are those who are attacking us "international" or any other kind of "criminals." And they are Absolutely not "soldiers" nor entitled to be afforded that status.

Which leaves only one description: "unlawful combatanats" and; even without their deliberate anonymous targeting of innocent and unarmed civilians, which activity puts them Absolutely beyong the pale; they are owed no rights beyond being brought before a Military Tribunal and tried and their sentences, without delay, executed.

And why some who were captured four or more years ago are still being housed and fed and cared for in little prisons all over the place is only one of so-called compassionate "conservativism's" bloody disgraces!

It was a good enough course of action for George Washington and aught be good enough for George Bush. And, as General Washington dealt with his civilian miscreants, fifth columnists, subversives, seditionists and traitors, so should Commander-In-Chief Bush deal with those of this modern era. Beginning with those in Congress and working ruthlessly and relentlessly through their bureaucratic and main-stream-media maties!


10 posted on 11/12/2005 10:31:51 AM PST by Brian Allen (Patriotic, Immigrant & therefore Hyphenated-AMERICAN-American & Aviator by choice. Christian byGrace)
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