Conservatives Start Speaking Out Against Torture

[Yurt]

i'm shocked, ravi lied about what someone else said and here i thought she was just pickin on dear ol' yurt

 

[xsited1]

i'm shocked, ravi lied about what someone else said and here i thought she was just pickin on dear ol' yurt

Be careful what you say about Ravi. One time I said something about donuts while talking about Ravi, and a couple of mods though I was making fun of her weight and got on my case. I have no idea what she even looks like. And Ravi packs a mean neg-rep.

 

[Yurt]

i'm shocked, ravi lied about what someone else said and here i thought she was just pickin on dear ol' yurt

Be careful what you say about Ravi. One time I said something about donuts while talking about Ravi, and a couple of mods though I was making fun of her weight and got on my case. I have no idea what she even looks like. And Ravi packs a mean neg-rep.

so i guess i don't want to talk with her about file allocation tables....

 

[Ravi]

No... that is NOT EVEN CLOSE TO WHAT I SAID... you simply LIED... but that's what liars DO...

There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN WHAT I SAID, WHICH COULD LEAD ANY REASONABLY INTELLIGENT PERSON TO CONCLUDE WHAT IT WAS THAT YOU CAME TO PROJECT IN RESPONSE TO MY STATED POSITION.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ravi
Can you tell a mass murderer or terrorist by just looking at them?



Quote: Originally Posted by PubliusInfinitum You bet...

 

[Ravi]

i'm shocked, ravi lied about what someone else said and here i thought she was just pickin on dear ol' yurt

Be careful what you say about Ravi. One time I said something about donuts while talking about Ravi, and a couple of mods though I was making fun of her weight and got on my case. I have no idea what she even looks like. And Ravi packs a mean neg-rep.

*sniff* Here, have a tissue.

 

[catzmeow]

this argument is such a logical fallacy....

do you advocate sending convicts to prison?

Absolutely. Do you understand the difference between a convicted felon and the people that we've tortured in our secret prisons?

The convicted felon is not only SUSPECTED of a crime (thus, Publius Infinitum's "reasonable suspicion" comment), but has been prosecuted for that crime. A convicted felon has had access to legal counsel to help him present the evidence in his defense. A convicted felon has had the opportunity to confront his accusers in court, and have his attorney question those witnesses. A convicted felon has been JUDGED GUILTY by either a jury of his peers, or an appointed judge.

The people that we have tortured in our secret prisons were found guilty of NOTHING. They were SUSPECTED of crimes. They had no access to an attorney to represent their interests. They have not been treated to due process within the justice system. They have been held: without bail, without review by a judge, without a trial, for months and years. And, they've been repeatedly subjected to treatment that would have had most of the big tough men on this board bawling like a baby in the first 24 hours.

I understand, quite clearly, the difference between a convicted felon, and the occupants of our torture rooms.

Do you, Yurt?

Do you get that these people have been tortured without EVEN BEING FOUND GUILTY OF A CRIME? Do you get that these people have been tortured based upon SUSPICIONS?

Do you understand that innocent people are arrested all the time in the U.S. for suspicions of criminal activity? In this case, I have no doubt that innocent people, perhaps hundreds of innocent people, have been tortured by our government.

So please, feel free to explain to me how you justify that. I'm dying to hear it.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Yo......Infinite Puberty.......weren't YOU taught how to resist torture?

If so, you of all people should understand it DOES NOT WORK.

Unless........of course.........you're stupid, which may be the case.

LOL... Rust Picker... the one immutable truth about torture is that it works... One can 'resist' only to the extent of one's means... and where one is a prisoner, there is ample time to stress beyond the means of anyone to resist.

Where you people are confused is on the misnomer wherein, someone is believed to have information which one does not have. What those who you CHOOSE to believe are telling you, is that once the individual tells you everything he knows, if you continue to debrief them beyond that point, they will tell you whatever they think you want to hear.

Thus, interrogation, as I have repeatedly explained to you, IS a PROCESS... wherein, intelligence pieces together information from various debriefings, and tests it against given knowns... once that test is accomplished, the individual is brought back for further interrogation to set what he said formerly against what has been learned to be known values... It's hardly a perfect system, but that's OK, because nothing is... AND IT WORKS.

What I love about these 'IT DOESN'T WORK' members is how absolutely POSITIVE THEY ARE, about something in which they have absolutely no experience and would, if given the opportunity, torture the literal crap out of someone that was known to have information on their children's whereabouts... except, they wouldn't discipline their system... they wouldn't measure their strikes, nor would they be concerned in the slightest about the well being of the individual who had stripped them of their rights.

Remember 9-11 kids? Remember the afternoon, when the dust cloud still hung on Manhatten and the Pentagon was still blazing?

I was back in my apartment in NY, as was everyone else; unable to contact the wife and kids because the phones were jammed... glued to the TV and on-line in the board I frequented at the time. And said at that time, as I watched the in-house Bolsheviks express their outrage and call for the cum-by-yah moment... where we all would rhetorically hold hands in unity... that it would be no time at all before those SAME PEOPLE were standing in that same forum and be DEMANDING THAT THE "RIGHTS" OF TERRORIST BE PROTECTED, ABOVE THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAD BEEN Atomized into that amalgom which was hovering on top of Manhatten.

Oh the OUTRAGE! The Moderates and Centrists were FURIOUS over my comments... 'how could I be political at a time like that...?" The Bolsheviks DEMANDED an apology, that I be BANNED! How could ANYONE even THINK that they would EVER defend this kind of insanity...

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Board... I submit that this entire thread is a testimony to my keen understanding of just how depraved left-think is... We are DEBATING, whether or not MASS MURDERERS, should be subjected to SLEEP DEPRIVATION... SLAPS IN THE FACE... being tied in an inclined position and water poured over their face, inducing a fear for their LIFE and a desperate desire to tell us everything that they know.

THINK about this... They are REDEFINING the concept of Torture to represent ANY THING... and REDEFINING MASS MURDER to represent NOTHING...

Yet, these same people are able to VOTE... It truly is a cognitive disorder of some kind; a delusion... Not even 7 years after 9-11 when the US was attacked by Islamic Radicals... Not only did these people spend 5 of those 7 years DEFENDING ISLAM, THEY ELECTED AT THEIR FIRST OPPORTUNITY... A RADICAL MUSLIM AS THE PRESIDENT OF THE US...

ROFL... Imagine it's 1986 and you decided to write a novel wherein the US would be attacked by radical Muslims; killing THOUSANDS; causing major league economic catastrophe; forcing the US to war where thousands more US citizens would perish and the ideological left would elect a radical Muslim for President DURING that War; a Radical who would go to work befriending the worlds communist despots and nationalizing the US financial and inustrial machine... ultimately resulting in the US being unable to fund any war... rejecting the very notion of Capitalism and refusing to even admit that the US was fighting a war against the enemy that attacked us; demanding that actions taken in the prosecution of that war, were instead crimes against humanity.

You would have been run out of the publishers office... "Oh that's not even plausible... No one will believe that reasonable people would ever do such a thing..."

Yet... here we are... LIVING IT.

LOL... Ya can't EVEN make this crap up.

 

[catzmeow]

Now it should also be noted that using the species of reasoning advanced by this sub-standard intellect, that the Police should not be able to detain ANYONE... who just happens to LOOK like a criminal... or the specific criminal which is known tohave engaged in criminal activity.

Of course she'll claim that simply detaining someone isn't the same as 'TORTURING THEM'... yet detaining someone that one doesn't reasonably believe to be a criminal who violated a specific criminal code... is a violation of their human rights... so such a defense is invalid.

The US isn't toruturing anyone... they aren't even applying coercive interrogation upon anyone that is not known to be engaged in and reasonably believed to be in possession of, time sensitive information which is critical to the sparing of innocent human life.

They ARE SUSPECTED OF HAVING INFORMATION. That is different from them being adjudicated guilty. But, way to try and blur the issues, Publius.

 

[WillowTree]

i'm shocked, ravi lied about what someone else said and here i thought she was just pickin on dear ol' yurt

there must be a club

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

No... that is NOT EVEN CLOSE TO WHAT I SAID... you simply LIED... but that's what liars DO...

There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN WHAT I SAID, WHICH COULD LEAD ANY REASONABLY INTELLIGENT PERSON TO CONCLUDE WHAT IT WAS THAT YOU CAME TO PROJECT IN RESPONSE TO MY STATED POSITION.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ravi
Can you tell a mass murderer or terrorist by just looking at them?



Quote: Originally Posted by PubliusInfinitum You bet... I know when I was in the business of capturing bad guys, we used these things called "Photographs"... as a general rule, they would give us some inside skinny on the target; why he was being sought and where we might find him... As part of the package, these "Photographs" sometimes referred to as 'Pictures' were provided, so that when we got closer... we could determine who the bad-guy was... They're VERY good for that kinda thing.

Here's an example of such... and just for fun, this is a 'picture' of a known terrorist:



Courtesy of these folks: http://britandgrit.com/wp-content/up...ksmohammed.jpg

EPIC FAIL!

Congrats... few people will continue to such levels of abject humiliation and expose their absolute absence of veracity... you have just proven yourself to be nothing short of an inveterate LIAR.[/B]

 

[Zoom-boing]

Where you people are confused is on the misnomer wherein, someone is believed to have information which one does not have. What those who you CHOOSE to believe are telling you, is that once the individual tells you everything he knows, if you continue to debrief them beyond that point, they will tell you whatever they think you want to hear.

Thus, interrogation, as I have repeatedly explained to you, IS a PROCESS... wherein, intelligence pieces together information from various debriefings, and tests it against given knowns... once that test is accomplished, the individual is brought back for further interrogation to set what he said formerly against what has been learned to be known values... It's hardly a perfect system, but that's OK, because nothing is... AND IT WORKS.

What I love about these 'IT DOESN'T WORK' members is how absolutely POSITIVE THEY ARE, about something in which they have absolutely no experience and would, if given the opportunity, torture the literal crap out of someone that was known to have information on their children's whereabouts... except, they wouldn't discipline their system... they wouldn't measure their strikes, nor would they be concerned in the slightest about the well being of the individual who had stripped them of their rights.

Remember 9-11 kids? Remember the afternoon, when the dust cloud still hung on Manhatten and the Pentagon was still blazing?

I was back in my apartment in NY, as was everyone else; unable to contact the wife and kids because the phones were jammed... glued to the TV and on-line in the board I frequented at the time. And said at that time, as I watched the in-house Bolsheviks express their outrage and call for the cum-by-yah moment... where we all would rhetorically hold hands in unity... that it would be no time at all before those SAME PEOPLE were standing in that same forum and be DEMANDING THAT THE "RIGHTS" OF TERRORIST BE PROTECTED, ABOVE THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAD BEEN Atomized into that amalgom which was hovering on top of Manhatten.

Oh the OUTRAGE! The Moderates and Centrists were FURIOUS over my comments... 'how could I be political at a time like that...?" The Bolsheviks DEMANDED an apology, that I be BANNED! How could ANYONE even THINK that they would EVER defend this kind of insanity...

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Board... I submit that this entire thread is a testimony to my keen understanding of just how depraved left-think is... We are DEBATING, whether or not MASS MURDERERS, should be subjected to SLEEP DEPRIVATION... SLAPS IN THE FACE... being tied in an inclined position and water poured over their face, inducing a fear for their LIFE and a desperate desire to tell us everything that they know.

THINK about this... They are REDEFINING the concept of Torture to represent ANY THING... and REDEFINING MASS MURDER to represent NOTHING...

 

[catzmeow]

The American Conservative

One of the things that has kept me from saying much over the last week or so is my sheer amazement that there are people who seriously pose such questions and expect to be answered with something other than expressions of bafflement and moral horror. Something else that has kept me from writing much on this recently is the profoundly dispiriting realization (really, it is just a reminder) that it is torture and aggressive war that today’s mainstream right will go to the wall to defend, while any and every other view can be negotiated, debated, compromised or abandoned. I have started doubting whether people who are openly pro-torture or engaged in the sophistry of Manzi’s post are part of the same moral universe as I am, and I have wondered whether there is even a point in contesting such torture apologia as if they were reasonable arguments deserving of real consideration. Such fundamental assumptions at the core of our civilization should not have to be re-stated or justified anew, and the fact that they have to be is evidence of how deeply corrupted our political life has become, but if such basic norms are not reinforced it seems clear that they will be leeched away over time.

Public Discourse, Torture: What it is, and Why it is Wrong, by Christopher O. Tollefsen

It is important to be clear, as a moral matter, on what boundaries should be accepted in interrogation of human beings. These sorts of boundaries, regardless of whether they are called torture, or “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, are the ones that matter for our most basic assessment of how agents of the United States Government should comport themselves when questioning terror suspects. The discussion should not, that is to say, begin with questions about how the nature of the terrorists’ crimes, or their status as illegal enemy combatants, affects what may be done. For, if there are forms of treatment forbidden as such for all human beings, then such forms of treatment will be ruled out for terror suspects just as for prisoners of war, and common criminals.

Sidestepping the Issue - Ramesh Ponnuru - The Corner on National Review Online

Surely the primary question is whether laws were broken; and if there is serious reason to believe that they were, then shouldn't there be a presumption in favor of investigation? An argument against prosecution that appears to concede that laws may have been broken, or treats the question as an afterthought, seems to me to be unlikely to prevail. The people who strongly oppose investigation and prosecution would be on stronger ground, it seems to me, making the argument that it is simply outlandish and absurd to think that policymakers violated the law. Can that argument be made?

It gives me some degree of comfort, as a moderate who has often voted conservatively (and who views herself as a hawkish fiscal conservative) to see people on the right coming to the same conclusions I have...and speaking out from the bastions of conservativism to oppose those who have co-opted a solidly American political paradigm to pretend that there is some way we can ever justify torture.

And my position is simply this: I am utterly, and completely baffled that in 2009, we have to have a discussion, in AMERICA of all places, of why it is morally repugnant to torture our enemies.

Have we fallen so far, as a country? Can anyone, in their remotest imagination, envision trying to defend torture to General Washington? Or, perhaps, Thomas Jefferson? How about Thomas Paine, who said, "Give me liberty, or give me death?" These men risked EVERYTHING...life, home, family, social standing, wealth...on the basis of the premise that a totalitarian government, which does not protect basic human rights, must be fought at all costs.

It shames me that there are people in this country who clearly don't understand why we don't/shouldn't torture people, as Americans.

This is not a POLITICAL issue for me. If Democratic leadership knew of this, they should be removed from office and stripped of power, forever, if not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I don't care what party these people represented. By approving and endorsing these acts, they have shamed ALL OF US as a nation.

 

[Ravi]

No... that is NOT EVEN CLOSE TO WHAT I SAID... you simply LIED... but that's what liars DO...

There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN WHAT I SAID, WHICH COULD LEAD ANY REASONABLY INTELLIGENT PERSON TO CONCLUDE WHAT IT WAS THAT YOU CAME TO PROJECT IN RESPONSE TO MY STATED POSITION.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ravi
Can you tell a mass murderer or terrorist by just looking at them?



Quote: Originally Posted by PubliusInfinitum You bet... I know when I was in the business of capturing bad guys, we used these things called "Photographs"... as a general rule, they would give us some inside skinny on the target; why he was being sought and where we might find him... As part of the package, these "Photographs" sometimes referred to as 'Pictures' were provided, so that when we got closer... we could determine who the bad-guy was... They're VERY good for that kinda thing.

Here's an example of such... and just for fun, this is a 'picture' of a known terrorist:



Courtesy of these folks: http://britandgrit.com/wp-content/up...ksmohammed.jpg

EPIC FAIL!

Congrats... few people will continue to such levels of abject humiliation and expose their absolute absence of veracity... you have just proven yourself to be nothing short of an inveterate LIAR.[/B]

Not sure what you are trying to say, Pubic...you agreed that you could tell a terrorist or mass murder by looking at someone and you coughed up a picture of someone that you can look at and know he's a terrorist and a mass murderer.

Maybe you should take yourself off to the middle east and shoot whomever you see that "looks" like a terrorist or mass murderer.

 

[KittenKoder]

Conservatives are not all the bad people that the extremist liberals paint them out to be, just as the reverse is also true. This isn't surprising really.

 

[editec]

Torturing prisoner is IMMORAL as well as usually being counterproductive.

It's bad enough that modern warfare excuses itself for the huge number of so called unfortunate "collatoral" damages, but to trying to rationalize torturing people is simply totally beyond the moral pale.

 

[DiamondDave]

Many conservatives and REPs have continually spoke out against torture.... it is just that most everything the peacenicks or far lefties consider torture is not really torture

 

[Old Rocks]

You will find all too many on this board that will condemn you as anti-American for even thinking that Bush and company did anything wrong on the torture issue. As McCain stated, the torture issue isn't just about what we are doing to other people when we engage in this kind of horror, but what we are doing to ourselves.

 

[007]

I didn't see any torture mentioned. What are they bitching about? Water Boarding? That's not torture. It doesn't cause pain, there are no lingering effects and no one has ever died from it.

Next?

Why not focus all this energy on the people who actually DO torture people, like terrorists? Ooooooohhh that's right.... YOU'RE TOO BUSY HATING AMERICA!

 

[Old Rocks]

Many conservatives and REPs have continually spoke out against torture.... it is just that most everything the peacenicks or far lefties consider torture is not really torture

Dave, you are damnable liar.

 

[catzmeow]

Torturing prisoner is IMMORAL as well as usually being counterproductive.

It's bad enough that modern warfare excuses itself for the huge number of so called unfortunate "collatoral" damages, but to trying to rationalize torturing people is simply totally beyond the moral pale.

This is not a partisan issue. I simply don't get it. I don't get how ANYONE in America can come down on the side of giving our government a green light to torturing suspects without feeling incredibly ashamed of themselves.

This is America. WE DON'T DO THIS. This is not who we are.