FBI: Key 9/11 leads obtained without torture

[quote name='mykevermin']We should just mash up a who said it did or didn't work thread, since this is going to be an ongoing mess for a while.[/quote]

It's pretty idiotic that people are even debating torture. What the hell is wrong with everyone?
 
It's not like people in general were morally or ethically consistent before this. Or ever.

I agree with you in a sense - I'm sickened we're having this discussion at all. At the same time, I'm not particularly surprised.
 
[quote name='Koggit']i love shep so hard[/QUOTE]

I think he's annoying, but he was right in that clip.

For the people who support it, they will argue that it wasn't torture. But even if "enhanced" interrogation techniques aren't torture (I'm not buying that, but just as a hypothetical), why put them in play if they are ineffective, as many warned they would be? People like John McCain, who knows a bit about torture, intelligently argued that information obtained under duress is unreliable. And here's another bit from the Defense agency consulted about these "techniques" that didn't support them either:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30399627/
 
I couldn't tell if he was "right" or not - was he saying that, as "America," it if our moral duty to not torture and therefore we shouldn't do it, or that if it's something America does, it is therefore not torture (in the same Nixonian logic of "if the president does it, it's not illegal")?
 
[quote name='mykevermin']I couldn't tell if he was "right" or not - was he saying that, as "America," it if our moral duty to not torture and therefore we shouldn't do it, or that if it's something America does, it is therefore not torture (in the same Nixonian logic of "if the president does it, it's not illegal")?[/quote]

It is the former.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCWN9UWtWkc

I like Shep as much as I can like a tv news pundit on fox no less. I am sure he is the biggest dick ever, but at least he makes fun of glen beck and all the stupid fluff stories he has to report.
 
Shep doesn't seem like a dick at all.. he just doesn't hide frustration with what he's told to do. Tell him to cover Paris Hilton and he's gonna whine about it the whole time. I don't think he's a dick.. I just think he is, as is all too rare for news television, a journalist.
 
[quote name='gareman']It is the former.
VIDEO REMOVED

I like Shep as much as I can like a tv news pundit on fox no less. I am sure he is the biggest dick ever, but at least he makes fun of glen beck and all the stupid fluff stories he has to report.[/quote]
I especially like his use of Conservative talking points to demonstrate his opposition to torture.

This isn't a "left or right - Liberal or Conservative" issue. This is an issue for America, and how we respond as a people. Do we have the strength of character to do what is right and honorable even while afraid? Or do we cower and sink to the level of those who will try to destroy us?

If we sink, aren't we doing their job for them? It's our liberties that they hate, after all.
 
[quote name='Quillion']I especially like his use of Conservative talking points to demonstrate his opposition to torture.

This isn't a "left or right - Liberal or Conservative" issue. This is an issue for America, and how we respond as a people. Do we have the strength of character to do what is right and honorable even while afraid? Or do we cower and sink to the level of those who will try to destroy us?

If we sink, aren't we doing their job for them? It's our liberties that they hate, after all.[/QUOTE]

That's exactly why things like warrantless wiretapping are bullshit. Don't tell me you're protecting our liberties by destroying them.
 
My father has been a raving lunatic the last few days with the talk about how Obama wants to ban waterboarding and other forms of torture. He stands that without the terrorists will win , it'll turn this country into a bunch of cowards , and that Obama wants american to just surrender to them . The only way to show them we are strong is to torture them.

He also claims (although even he can't claim were he heard it from) that some attempted terrorist attack from the last few years was thwarted because we tortured a terrorist who gave us the information about it.
 
[quote name='StarKnightX']He also claims (although even he can't claim were he heard it from) that some attempted terrorist attack from the last few years was thwarted because we tortured a terrorist who gave us the information about it.[/quote]

By any chance is he a big fan of 24?
 
[quote name='camoor']By any chance is he a big fan of 24?[/quote]

Yes , yes he is actually (I used to be but season 6 kinda killed the show for me). I almost mentioned this in my previous post.

Me and my mother have both accused him of this very thing , saying that he's been watching too much 24 (and TV in general) to believe that torture really works that well.
 
I don't have any particular moral objection to torture. I do, however, seriously doubt that it's effective in any but a very limited set of circumstances. Put my feet to the fire long enough, I'll admit to anything you want. If that's not good enough, I'll make shit up I think you want to hear....whatever it takes. Pretty sure almost anyone would.

Second, we've been running around the world puffing ourselves up about how great and moral and clean we are. If we want to really live up to that, then we don't get to use torture EVER, regardless of it's efficacy.
 
You can't have the "moral high ground" if you're using the same practices your enemies use. Besides that, to me America isn't simply a piece of land, it's a set of ideals. The US could be located anywhere so long as the American ideals were upheld. If we give in and start behaving like the very people we're supposed to be fighting against, then this isn't really America any more. I mean just exactly what ends are we willing to go to just to say we won? Are we willing to give up the things we stand for just for a shallow victory?
 
A combination of “enhanced interrogation” techniques approved by high-level Bush administration officials coupled with a series of brutal beatings administered by military interrogators were directly responsible for the December 2002 deaths of two detainees at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, according to a report released last week by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The report classified their deaths as homicides. In other words, the two prisoners were tortured to death.
Click to expand...


I wouldn't say homicide. Sounds more like enhanced death techniques.

http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/87...detainees-murder-to-bushs-torture-policy.html
 
[quote name='JolietJake']You can't have the "moral high ground" if you're using the same practices your enemies use. Besides that, to me America isn't simply a piece of land, it's a set of ideals. The US could be located anywhere so long as the American ideals were upheld. If we give in and start behaving like the very people we're supposed to be fighting against, then this isn't really America any more. I mean just exactly what ends are we willing to go to just to say we won? Are we willing to give up the things we stand for just for a shallow victory?[/QUOTE]

Well said, but it wouldn't even be a victory if, to enable said "victory," we destroyed our own ideals in the process.
 
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