<p>I remember years ago watching Deer Hunter and being horrified when they showed American Soldiers in Vietnam submerged in cages in water up to their necks… the thought that our loved ones could be so inhumanely treated was awful… </p>
<p>I think our country, with all its riches, has an obligation to lead by example… to use our resources to come up with more creative ways to deal with the explosive terrorism of this century… </p>
<p>I think that we need to remember the Golden Rule…do unto others as you would have them do unto you… not do unto others before they do unto you… not do now and justify later… not do things in secret so no one knows what you do… </p>
<p>We, the United States of America have not exhausted all resources at our disposal to truly lead the world…we blew the goodwill available after 9/11 and even Bush’s own AG Gonzales has begun to confirm that we have lost credibility worldwide. </p>
<p>My greatest disappointment is how quickly people have sold their vote for the false promise of tax breaks… everyday Dick and Janes voted for Bush because they wanted tax breaks…so, maybe they get $500 or even a $1000 break, but they have lost $thousands in health care coverage and EARNED pensions…never mind, JOBS…which have been outsourced or given to illegal or exception immigrants…this current administration, and all their buddies have been buying votes, with tax breaks, with arena tickets and big meals/wine…and Americans have been lining up to sell their vote. The ones who stay home from the polls are equally guilty of not valuing their contribution to American leadership…EVERY vote counts…EVERY American counts…never before have so many Americans been written off by our President and his cronies… Lou Dobbs is way more articulate on this than me… he writes about how this administration exists solely for Corporate America… </p>
<p>I have faith in an ultimate arbiter… I need more faith in the average American… keeping my fingers crossed that election day will show us the Average American is angry and not going to take this any more…</p>
<p>I know when I haven’t seen 'em. Nowhere to be found. (I’m looking for the family values, too, but I think they keep them stashed behind the body armor they didn’t send.)</p>
<p>NSM, are you teally feeling sorry for this Kalik Sheik Mohammed? </p>
<p>Waterboarding is part of the training our own armed forces go through, to learn to withstand what our enemies will surely dish out. Unfortunately, if our servicemen and women are captured, waterboarding is the least of their worries. </p>
<p>By the way, why doesn’t the terrorists’ “credibility” suffer for their totally horrid brutalities and snuff films? Why are countries like Sudan (home of the Darfur genocide) put on the UN Human Rights Commission and the US kicked off?</p>
<p>I’m still surprised people actually care about the UN, or does no one remember what happened to the League of Nations? The idea behind it is just, but it is not practical at this time. The United States is the last remaining superpower, and make no mistake, we are very alone.</p>
<p>By the way, if you think Americans will be “angry” and ask for reform think again, we’re all too content to sit on our butts and watch television. </p>
<p>It may not be tomorrow, it may not be next year, but the same decline that occurred in Rome over a thousand years ago is occurring here as well; the people were more concerned about their lifestyle than upholding the ideals upon which Rome was founded; it got to the point that the true citizens stopped serving in the army and mercenaries were hired instead. </p>
<p>While we are still in control of our destiny to some degree, from all that I have seen in the past few years, my hopes are not high.</p>
<p>Go back and read the article referred to in Northstarmom’s post #14. The key to the article was that the information we were getting was generated by using tried-and-true tactics by experienced interrogators. These techniques involed sophisticated psychological practices that were succeeding. As one of the interrogators said, the trick is not to get them to talk- it’s to get them to want to talk. These are the methods, they said,that got accurate information.</p>
<p>Then the Cheney-inspired types came in, inexperienced in interrogations. They were told that torture was the only acceptable technique. And all of a sudden we were told that shopping centers were going to be attacked, and that some little town in Virginia was going to be bombed. Remember all that ?</p>
<p>Don’t you remember when you first studied the Middle Ages in school,and you first learned about torturing suspects? Remember your reaction when you first heard of all these women who were tortured in Salem, until they admitted they were witches? And all the kids laughed, and said, what bozo’s these people were? Don’t they know that if you torture people, they’ll admit to anything, and testify to the sins of people they’ve never met?</p>
<p>How is it that what we immediately understood as a “duh” moment, as children, we’re now repeating as the bozo’s in 2006?</p>
<p>So businessguy, it’s not clear from your post: to stay on topic, is torturing people part of the ideals our nation was founded on, or not torturing people?</p>
<p>"NSM, are you teally feeling sorry for this Kalik Sheik Mohammed? "</p>
<p>I am feeling sorry that the values that I believe in – that have included proudly being a citizen of a country that forbids cruel and unusual punishment – are being trampled by people who seem to think that defending the country means going against the practices that have made it great and a country for oppressed people to want to emulate.</p>
<p>Well kluge, I think torture is definately not something that should be actively promoted or used. I can see both sides of the argument, but at this point I feel there are much larger problems to deal with.</p>
<p>As I said before though, if torturing a terrorist would’ve allowed us to avoid the 9/11 tragedy or any other massive loss of American life, I would not hesitate to support using it. Unfortunately, I don’t think torture procures great results for the most part.</p>
<p>I can’t really give a more definitive answer than that; but, if I had to choose between actively using torture and condemning it, I would not hesitate to condemn it.</p>
<p>I wonder what strategies currently being employed by the U.S. Government account for the fact that as of today, a full five years after 9/11, there have been NO further terrorist attacks on U.S. soil? Al Qaida claims they’ve still got it in for us—have in fact, been threatening to drop the other shoe for the past five years. So, what are they waiting for? What’s stopping them?</p>
<p>Why no more attacks on US soil? Because they already achieved their objective: they wanted the US to go stir up the mideast and begin a war involving Christians, Jews and Muslims. In OBL’s twisted mind, that’s what he wanted in order to, in current terms “energize his base”. </p>
<p>Well, he won. He got his war, since we fell right into his trap and invaded Iraq. Now Lebanon became more unstable, Israel is fighting more, and Iran is more powerful.</p>
<p>BusinessGuy is probably right. Rome fell. We will too. Nothing to do about it really. It is simply a natural progression, just as the old gives way to the new (sooner or later), so shall the tired and aimless power give way to the one with vitality and direction (religious crusade anyone?). What at this point do we have to counteract our enemy, nuclear weapons? The use of those would surely spell doom for life on earth, but that is at present our only ace. Sad. </p>
<p>It is an insidious thing, as we are for the most part too comfortable with our lives (too many material comforts that we just cannot live without – think cell phone, among a horde of others) and our “leaders” know it as they continually “take the pulse” of America. It gives those leaders an influence over us that is in effect all but direct power. That is the real threat our future – that we have allowed ourselves to be “fat, dumb and happy” – just like the Romans did.
What I do hope is that when the time comes we will not have made so many enemies that our nation is obliterated one day and forgotten the next.</p>
<p>Meanwhile “War is HELL [caps mine].” There is no plainer way to say it. It is also the triumph of brutish stupidity and the defeat of intelligent good will. As far as torture is concerned, it is one piece in the mosaic of hell/war. And, as they say – All’s fair in love and war".</p>
<p>Second, waterboarding is not “cruel and unusual punishment”; it is meant as a means of interrogation to prevent future loss of life. If KSM were waterboarded on a daily basis as a way of punishing him this would be a completely different subject and there would be very few people that would support it. That makes for a very clear distinction between true torture as practiced in the Middle Ages and by our current enemy and is what makes its use consistent with the principles of this country.</p>
<p>Third, it is crazy, perverted logic that it is because we use tough interrogation techniques that we make the Islamic world want to kill us. If this were so, why have they been carrying out attacks on us for decades? I give this administration credit for finally waking up and realizing that we are in a war and not conducting a police investigation.</p>
<p>Fourth, it is bunk that waterboarding and other forms of tough interrogation don’t work and that milder forms of interrogation do work. Those who have carried out this interrogation have gone on record saying that when they first tried using the traditional interrogation techniques that it was like talking to a stone wall. However, once tougher techniques were used the terrorists gave up a lot of information.</p>
<p>Fifth, there are terrorists in prison right now and lives saved because of these techniques. This declassified information summarizes the number of terrorists caught and plots disrupted by using these methods. For those who don’t like this type of interrogation, please read this document and then claim that you would rather have these terrorists still walking the streets and would rather have the thousands of people dead as a result of their plots than to have had people like KSM feel like he might be drowning for a minute or two. <a href=“http://www.odni.gov/announcements/content/TheHighValueDetaineeProgram.pdf[/url]”>http://www.odni.gov/announcements/content/TheHighValueDetaineeProgram.pdf</a>
Poetsheart is exactly correct - we have been attack-free for 5 years as a direct result of this type of interrogation. </p>
<p>Sixth, everyone must have a threshold at which they would say, “OK, it’s time to start getting tough.” For many, having 3,000 people killed on 9/11 was that threshold. However, apparently that was insufficient for others. But ask yourself, what would it take? Would the loss of hundreds of thousands or even millions as a result of a nuclear attack be sufficient? The trouble is that if you wait until it happens to get that resolve, it is too late. This is far from the realm of impossibility; there are numerous studies from credible experts on national security which assign frighteningly high probabilities to such an attack. Here is one such view from Harvard by Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of Defense:
<p>^^^ Except that we have documented cases of plots being disrupted and terrorists captured as a result of this activity. This is far from a “silly argument”.</p>
<p>So are you saying that there were no plots between WTC I and 9-11? What techniques did Clinton officials use that made them more successful than Bush II?</p>