Free Republic

Three men are accused of abducting a Florida man in Fort Lauderdale at gunpoint, waterboarding him and then trying to enlist his help in their plot when they realized they'd taken the wrong person, according to a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday. The alleged victim played along until he got away long enough to call in a bomb threat that sent a massive police response to the rescue, authorities said. The suspects are two bothers, Jeffry Arista, 32, and Jonathan Arista, 29, and a third man named Raymond Gomez. They allegedly snatched a man in a parking garage outside his Fort...

Native American leaders are furious with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass after she abruptly replaced the first-ever Native American commissioner of the Department of Water and Power (DWP) with a “queer” white male. Mayor Bass removed Cynthia Ruiz, who had only been in office a year, and is well-liked by stakeholders, with George McGraw, a “a leading queer voice in social entrepreneurship, environmental justice, and water.”

The hunt for James Foley’s killer: On Sunday, the British ambassador to the United States said Britain was close to identifying Foley’s killer. A number of possible identities have been suggested by British media although sources on both sides of the Atlantic have told Reuters that there was little likelihood of the British government naming the suspect imminently. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Foley and at least 3 other captives are known to have been waterboarded: At least four hostages held in Syria by the Islamic State, including an American journalist who was recently executed by the group, were waterboarded in the early...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton needs to provide "hours and hours" of private depositions if any House select committee is effective in uncovering what happened in the 2012 Benghazi deaths that killed four Americans, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said on Saturday. "The public hearings that get so much attention are the last things that should happen," Bolton, who served in the George W. Bush White House, told Jeanine Pirro on her Fox News program. "We need former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton giving hours and hours of depositions before they put her back out in public testimony. That's...

Ex-CIA chief defends waterboarding of al Qaeda leader Jose Rodriguez has no regrets about using the "enhanced interrogation techniques" - methods that some consider torture -- on al Qaeda detainees questioned after 9/11 and denies charges they didn't work. The former head of the CIA's Clandestine Service talks to Lesley Stahl about those methods, including waterboarding, for the first time and defends their use - even comparing them to the current policy of killing al Qaeda leaders with drone strikes. The Rodriguez interview will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, April 29 at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Rodriguez says everything his...

In 2007, WaPo ended an article quoting a CIA officer as saying in 2005, "The larger problem here, I think is that this kind of stuff just makes people feel better, even if it doesn't work." in regards to the question of whether torture works or not. Now we have Gregg Bloche, a physician and a professor of law at Georgetown University, writing for WaPo, saying the reverse: That those who say "torture doesn't work" are saying it to make themselves feel better. Finally, we have a critic of the CIA enhanced interrogation program who isn't launching into hyperbole...

VATICAN ABUSE NORMS RELEASED Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the Vatican's guidelines on sex abuse and the early reaction to it: The three most noteworthy features of the Vatican's new guidelines are (a) its commitment to the due process rights of priests (b) its insistence on cooperation with civil authorities and (c) its restatement of episcopal authority in these matters. It was reassuring to learn that the Vatican says, "The accused cleric is presumed innocent until the contrary is proven." Significantly, the guidelines say that "the prescriptions of civil law regarding the reporting of such crimes to the...

So much talk of waterboarding, so much controversy. But what is it really? How bad? I wanted to write the definitive thread on waterboarding, settle the issue. Torture, or not? To determine the answer, I knew I had to try it. I looked at my two small children. Surely, in the interests of science?..... But alas, my wife had objections. Perhaps her? Sadly, she is proficient in Ju Jitsu, and I am unlikely to waterboard her. That leaves me. *** Seriously, I determined to give this a try, see how bad it was: Settle the debate authoritatively. Torture, or not?...

The water boarding debate is back on, primarily because the administration can’t ignore the fact that it led to the elimination of Osama bin Laden. The enhanced use of a Netti pot is not only effective, it’s also safe for all concerned. The water boardees are attended to by a plethora of experts, including physicians and psychologists to ensure the protection of their delicate sensibilities. We also water board our own troops. Unfortunately, pundits in both camps are confused about how enhanced interrogations actually work. Liberals are always spewing the fiction that information gained via water boarding is not reliable....

With all the renewed talk about waterboarding I thought it would be a good thing to open a thread where folks who have been waterboarded can sign and leave their comments for posterity.The rest of the Freepers can thank us for our service and sacrifice in perfecting this effective non-torture technique.And, there is not one person who has administered a session that has not themselves been "on the board".

SYDNEY : Beware, Naga Viper. Your reign as the world's hottest chili pepper may be coming to a close. A group of Australians is seeking world record status for a new variety of chili, a bright red pepper so potent that processing it for eating requires gas masks and protective chemical warfare-like clothing. The "Trinidad Scorpion Butch T" chili, a mere 2.5 cm (1 inch) long, comes it at a fiery 1.46 million Scoville Heat Units (SHU) per chili, according to testing by Melbourne firm EML Chemical == taking it well past the Naga Viper British Chili, the current Guinness...

In reviewing Yoo's new book, Mike wrote: In a day when we confront an enemy that has no state, wears no uniform and can not be appeased or negotiated with using diplomatic or economic means a new challenge was met by President George W. Bush with renewed reliance on the historic and evolving use of executive power. We all remember the battles Bush had with Congress over the use of Executive authority to combat terrorism after September 11th. John Yoo was at the epicenter of those battles. From 2001-2003, he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office...

Politics: A battle ensues between one vice president who defended freedom well and another who sorely needs his boss's teleprompter. Biden accuses Cheney of rewriting history while claiming that Iraq is this administration's victory. Maybe Vice President Joe Biden should think about writing talking points on his hand as his rhetoric reaches levels of absurdity where no politician has gone before. After last weekend's round of competitive gabfests, one would expect to see a billboard of former Vice President Dick Cheney with a caption, "Miss me yet?" We do, sir, we do. After yeoman service helping President Bush fight the...

“Now, President Obama has taken them off the table. He announced when he came in last year that they would never use anything other than the U.S. Army Manual which doesn’t include those techniques. I think that’s a mistake.”

Wimpy liberals are violently opposed to the use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques unless practiced on members of the Bush administration. The thought of putting a caterpillar in a cell with a barbarian who would gladly saw our heads off shocks the liberal conscience. The left deems waterboarding to be a vile form of torture, despite the fact that millions of us waterboard ourselves every morning with a Neti pot and some SinuCleanse®. Former Vice President, Dick Cheney has taken Obama back to the woodshed yet again about national security. The alleged Harvard grad is a slow learner. Cheney appeared on...

Obama Advisor Brennan On MTP: When "Their lawyers recogize that there is advantage to talking to us in terms of 'plea agreements,' we're gonna pursue that".....(Plea agreements with terrorist)....video

The latest Rasmussen poll reports that American's think that the military should be investigating the case of the underwear bomber, should be trying to extract information about the terrorist cells in Yemen, and if necessary, should use water boarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques to make him talk. Despite what you hear from the President and the Kumbaya School of terrorist interrogation, water boarding and the other "enhanced interrogation methods" do work, and in the past has saved American lives. Heck, even the liberal Washington Post has figured that out:

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War On Terror: Charges against the mastermind behind the bombing of the USS Cole are dismissed. He will be retried, but not by a military commission that would have given him the death penalty he deserves.Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell announced on Thursday that Susan Crawford, the convening authority for military tribunals at Guantanamo, has made the decision to withdraw charges against Abd al-Rahim Hussain Mohammed al-Nashiri. This is the Saudi man believed to be the architect of the bombing of the guided missile destroyer USS Cole, killing 17 American sailors, as it sat in the Yemeni port of Aden. The...

Something that I saw on BBC that really pisses me off if that an unspecified amount of people who protested against the rigged 'elections' in Iran two months ago were apparently tortured to death by security forces. Even worse, both males and females who opposed the regime were systematically raped. The opposition has claimed, and probably correctly, that at least 69 people have been killed by the Iranian government for protesting the 'election' results. In addition, over 100 political prisoners are being held and could be put to death.