Posted on 04/20/2009 5:37:34 PM PDT by La Enchiladita
...HAYDEN: I wasn't asked. We weren't asked. We were informed as a courtesy by the agency that this was a pending decision, and all of us self-initiated, voluntarily, to call the White House and express our views.
I should add, too, that the current director, Director Panetta, shared our views. I mean, if you look — if you look at what this really comprises, if you look at the documents that have been made public, it says top secret at the top. The definition of top secret is information which, if revealed, would cause grave harm to U.S. security.
And you had the current director and, according to the press accounts, his four previous predecessors all saying that those documents were appropriately classified, which means that they viewed the documents as — the release of them would be a grave threat to national security.
Now, the president made a different decision fully within his authority. The president is the ultimate classification authority.
WALLACE: I just want to make this clear. Who did you speak to at the White House?
HAYDEN: I called the White House counsel, the national security adviser, the deputy national security adviser.
WALLACE: You spoke to them all?
HAYDEN: Yeah.
WALLACE: And you said this would be a grave threat to national security to...
......
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The very existence of a process of Justice Department guidance/control over Military Intelligence is a threat to national security and an assault on sanity.
The memos reveal America to have been and to be currently, led in its response to terrorist attacks and threats, by hand wringing, jello spined, media pleasers, without any real concept of war, victory, or national security. Not only do the memos not reveal interrogation conduct even resembling torture, more importantly the demonstrate a national lack of will for self preservation, at least as to our Congress and Executive branch, other than the rank and file uniformed services, who have been put at risk by the continuing submission to propaganda by our feeble brained national leadership.
A Nation too paralyzed to only allow interrogation techniques of foreign terror suspects, or enemy combatants, less “enhanced” than those used on volunteers in a popular American reality-TV show, is a nation that will never see Victory because it does not value Victory enough. It is also a nation that does not know what “torture” really is.
On, April 17, 2009, the MSN headlines began, reports and commentary detailed what the NY Times lead article described as “brutal interrogation techniques”. President Obama, CNN commentators from the left and right (Gergen; Rollins), ACLU spokesman (Jameel Jaffer), law professor Jonathan Turley and a host of MSNBC agitator/spokesman, in response to the disclosures feigned horror and anguish, and decried the use of such techniques by the CIA against select terror suspects following the 9 - 11 attacks as “torture”, and repudiated as immoral and unlawful, the actions of the US in so doing. The specific techniques which were the basis of this daylong marathon of condemnation, and which have been and continue to be the basis for an ongoing series of international apologies by President Obama, intended in part to demean and stigmatize the prior administration’s foreign policy policies, were comprised, it was shown by the released memos, by the following (in addition to a proposed but unused plan to place a catepillar in the cell of one uncooperative detainee intended to distress the detainee into cooperation with interrogators):
1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.
2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.
3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.
4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.
5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.
6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt. “
Note: Water Boarding specifically has been reported to have been used on a very low number (3) of “high value” detainees. Water Boarding is a procedure routinely used upon US Military personnel in training to handle hostile capture and interrogation. Several reporters have voluntarily undergone “water boarding”, which has its effect generally in less that two minutes. No one seems to enjoy the experience.
In contrast consider a formerly popular reality tv show that grossed over $600 MM while broadcasting volunatary contests for a $50K prize award and a “no fear” designation for the winners, and which broadcast in the relevant period of 2001 -2006 in the US, “Fear Factor”. A representative sample of the events for which there appeared to be no limit of volunteers during the shows run on NBC and in syndication, as well as a widespread popular audience, included the following:
1.) Fear Factor Pizza - Episode 317 (Season 3): This stunt must have made some of the contestants give up on eating pizza ever again. With a crust made from cow bile, coagulated blood paste for sauce, rancid cheese and topping choices like live red worms and fish eyes, Although most contestants ended up puking up their tasty treat, all contestants managed to complete the stunt and move on to the next round.
2.) Rat Bobbing - Episode 416 (Season 4): During Couples’ Fear Factor, the girls had to lie down in a plexi-glass tank, and then were covered in 400 rats. The guys then had to retrieve ten chicken’s feet from the tank, using only their mouths! One couple bowed out of the stunt cuz it was just too gross! The couple who won this stunt won an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas .
3.) Eat Buffalo Testicles - Episode 104 (Season 1): Ever tried a Rocky Mountain Oyster? Peeps in Colorado think they’re pretty tasty when they’re breaded and fried, but bull’s testicles aren’t as tastily prepared on Fear Factor. Contestants had to eat two large bull’s testicles in four minutes or else they would be eliminated. Before being able to eat the testicles, contestants would need to bite through and then peel back a veiny membrane that was holding the “meat” inside. - only the two guys were able to complete the stunt.
4.) Bug Body Bag - Episode 433 (Season 4): This All-Female edition of Fear Factor included one truly gruesome stunt. Contestants were stuck inside a morgue drawer, in a body bag filled with giant hissing cockroaches, flesh-eating worms, crickets and stink beetles. Locked in the pitch black of the morgue drawer, the girls were locked in chains and had to fumble around to find the right key to unlock themselves.
5.) Eat African Cave-Dwelling Spiders - Episode 408 (Season 4): This stunt was not for elimination but instead to win a brand new car. Contestants lined up at a table full of African cave-dwelling spiders and had to grab hold of them, and then eat them alive. We’re not talking run-of-the-mill basement spiders either. These bad boys looked like a cross between a spider and a crab and even had the little pinchers to prove it. This stunt brought one contestant to tears and she almost forfeited the challenge. In the end, all of the contestants ate a couple of spiders. The winner ate a whopping 12!
6.) Cow Eye Juice - Episode 403 (Season 4): For this Fear Factor stunt, contestants had to stick their face in a jar full of cow eyeballs, pick them up without using their hands and then puncture them with their teeth, letting all of the juices fall in to a cup. Once the cup was full, the contestants would then have to drink the cow eyeball juice. As if it’s not bad enough putting slimy, gooey eyeballs in your mouth, you would then have to drink the ooze from inside the eye too!
7.) Eat Horse Rectum - Episode 313 (Season 3): This challenge started out with the contestants playing a game of horseshoes. They would get three tosses. There were four rings around the horseshoe peg with the numbers 8, 6, 7 and then 8 again. If the contestant got their horseshoe around the peg, that would give them a score of 0. The goal of this game? To see how many inches of horse rectum the contestants would have to eat! Both girls attempted the stunt, but only one was able to complete it which meant that she won $25,000 dollars for choking back 13 inches.
8.) Fear Factor Spaghetti - Episode 211 (Season 2): Another Fear Factor specialty was served up for this stunt. Fear Factory Spaghetti was made up of live night crawlers and coagulated blood balls. Mmmm. This stunt was so gross that none of the contestants made it through their plate of spaghetti. Wonder why?
9.) Intestine Chew, Milk and Chug - Episode 422 (Season 4): Here’s yet another stunt that involved the contestants sitting in a glass coffin covered in something disgusting. This time around, Fear Factor’s weapon of choice was cow intestines. Contestants were covered in hundreds of pounds of intestines which they then had to puncture with their mouth, suck out the liquid and fill a glass with it. At the end of course, they had to drink the chunky mixture and hope that they could do it faster than their fellow opponents.
10.) Slugs and Bile - Episode 312 (Season 3): First up on the Fear Factor menu for this stunt were 10, fat, slimy slugs. Each contestant had to choke down their 10 slugs, followed by a shot of cow bile. One contestant tried rubbing the slime from the slugs off on her arm, but that only made them more agitated (making them excrete more goo!).
Note: The above list was complied from a popular internet site for children (Kidzworld).
Not all viewers were unaverse to the Fear Factor stunts. Apparently one viewer had sympathies similar to the weak stomach and timid sensibilities of the MSN commentators and our current crop of national leaders. In January 2005, an episode featuring a stunt involving blended rats aired in its normal prime time slot. Austin Aitken, a part-time paralegal from Cleveland, sued NBC for $2.5 million USD for airing the show, claiming that he felt so disgusted from watching the stunt, his blood pressure rose until he felt dizzy and lightheaded and subsequently vomited. He claimed that his disorientation was so severe that he ran into a doorway and seriously injured himself, however, in March 2005, U.S. District Judge Lesley Wells threw out the lawsuit.(Wikipedia). Apparently, however, the new administration and the democrat congress along with the MSN are aligned with Mr. Aitken and unable to stomach even lesser non-lethal, non injurious efforts to preserve our national security.
When America comes under real attack from foreign states or terrorists as happened in 2001, an American government that fails to value Victory above public relations and political expediency (the ongoing implied that the Bush administration engaged in unlawful conduct - when the truth is opposite - that Bush prolonged the war by years of wasted effort negotiating with the UN and operating with ROE that obscured and delayed an American Victory) America is and will be the loser. Can anyone imagine Gen. Sherman waiting for Justice Department guidance before determining how to prosecute the war?
Yes, I thought the so-called “torture” sounded harmless and pathetic, quite frankly!!!
Leave 'em guessing what that will mean.
Now you are talking!! What we have become is shameful!!
Ping
Thanks, excellent post.
His poor wife must be aghast ~ bet she returns to Chicago with her mother and two little girls by the end of this month.
(She'll be planting some bushes that grow good switches too).
They left out the worst ones: for example, the Rockefeller, where a very tall deaf mute gives the terrorist a dime at erratic intervals for no reason in particular, confusing the hell out of them. The Kennedy, where a fat old fart takes the terrorist for an auto ride off a bridge and feels them up while they are drowning. The Frank, where a sloppy old reprobate comes up from behind and...well, never mind, that one doesn’t actually frighten mohammedans because they are quite accustomed to that sort of things. Or the worst one of them all, the Gore, where this enormous pig of a man deprives them of oxygen until they agree with all of the premises of A Bridge too Far, or the Narnia Chronicles, or Where the Wild Things Are, or whatever that book was for which the big fella got some award from Iceland or some such place.
Well at least the White House 1960s Marxist street rabble and their ideological issue (Obama among them) had a reason for releasing the documents.
That is a terrific idea. Keep them guessing!
No doubt, I would let them torture me in every way mentioned in the memo rather than eat one rancid thing from Fear Factor for $50,000...
I might even do it for $10,000 - if they let may stay in solitary for a few more days... I might find myself...
Thanks for posting.
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