After several hours of "enhanced interrogation" the interrogator comes back and says it doesn't matter what we do, she just keeps laughing. Also, she keeps asking when someone is coming in to mow the front lawn.

Not going to ban you for your opinion. But saying a veteran should have been kia is pretty goddamn low. You are, as all the dumbass motherfuckers on the interweb who have been calling him a traitor are, referring to the fact that he broke during his POW incarceration.

Here is a brief excerpt of the new techniques that came out right around the time he was captured. Techniques that were so insidious that the military had to REWRITE the code regarding breaking under torture.

"Some were physically tortured, some of them succumbed to the pain and broke, some did not, but there was also a new technique employed, and it took time.

Put into a dark box, not large enough to even stretch out, it is called sensory deprivation, and along with other enhancements, it turns a person insane, malleable, and open to the most ridiculous suggestions. like confessing to the war crime of being ordered to bomb hospitals and orphanages, and doing so.

Some of those who broke under this new kind of interrogation feared to be repatriated, thinking they would be tried for collaboration upon their return. American psychologists and psychiatrists, after interviewing some of these ex-POW’s, determined that, given enough time, anyone, if not everyone, could be broken.

John McCain made them start all over on him a number of times, until his Vietnamese interrogators finally gave up, and threw him into a miserable cell, and not back into his horribly, miserable dark box. His conduct, during his interrogation period, and thereafter, was nothing short of heroic."

Now, if you ever go through enhanced interrogation techniques, please feel free to report back to us how you managed not to break or suffer mental damage from them. Until that time, I find your opinion to be ill informed and lacking weight.

EDIT: Before you go saying I am a fanboy, I didn't care for him as a senator or presidential candidate. He was gullible enough to get sucked into the Keating Five mess and I didn't feel he would be a good president, so I voted democrat in 2008, even though I generally vote republican. I can still recognize him as a war hero and for his service though. The man was not a traitor.

@enoch,

neo-conservatives
I've said in a couple other threads if I was American I'd have(very sadly mind you) voted for Hillary. Not sure, but that should really lay the neo-con thing to bed right there. Doesn't mean I won't agree with them if they notice the sky looks rather blue...

the MCA of 2006 and the NDAA of 2012
I don't base or form my morality around American law, so when and how it's deemed lawful or not for an American president to order something doesn't change my opinion one inch on whether the act is good or bad. Sure, it deducts a lot of points when a President breaks laws so that factors in, but if it's legal for a president to shoot babies we're all still gonna call it immoral anyways, right?

you find that it is the region,the actual soil that a person is on that makes the difference between legal prosecution..and assassination.
Between act of war, or peace time legal prosecution with proper due process.

this is EXACTLY what happened with afghanistan in regards to osama bin laden.
and BOTH times,the US state department could not provide conclusive evidence that either bin laden,or awlaki had actually perpetrated a terrorist act.

Sorry, but regarding Bin Laden that's a lie. The US state department held a trial and convicted Bin Laden already back in the 90s. The Taliban refused to extradite him then, and demanded they be shown evidence. They were shown the evidence and declared that they saw nothing unIslamic in his actions. Clinton spent his entire presidency back and forth with them, even getting a unanimous order from the UN security council demanding Bin Laden's extradition.

Smugly claiming that the US refused to provide any evidence to the Taliban because they were being bullies is ignoring reality. after spending several years getting jerked around by the Taliban claiming each new act of war launched from their territory wasn't their fault nor bin Laden's fault left a less patient president after 9/11...

now,is hannity guilty of incitement?
should he be held accountable for those shot dead?
by YOUR logic,yes..yes he should.
Can't say I'm very familiar with Hannity because I avoid Fox news at all costs.
Did he praise the killings afterwards and declare the shooter a hero like Anwar?
Did he council before hand in his books that killing those people was moral or just or religiously blessed like Anwar did?
Did he personally meet with and council/mentor the shooter before hand at some point as well, like Anwar did?

I have to ask just so we really are comparing apples to apples and all. If the answers are yes(and from Fox I suppose I can't completely rule that out just out of hand), then yeah, he's as guilty as Anwar.

now what if hannity had taken off to find refuge in yemen?
do we send a drone?

If he goes to Yemen we just laugh at our good fortune that he decided to kill himself for us.

To your point, if he finds a similar independent state to continue promoting and coordinating attacks as part of an effective terrorist unit killing new civilians every week then yes, bombs away.

Now if either he or Anwar remained in the US you arrest them and follow all due process. Oh, and to again shake the neo-con cloud you don't get to torture them by calling it enhanced interrogation, it's still a war crime and you should lock yourself up in a cell next door.

My whole thing is that setting up a state within a state and waging war shouldn't just be a get out of jail free card under international law. Either the 'host' state is responsible for the actions or it is not. If responsible, then like in Afghanistan it initiated the war by launching the first attacks. If not responsible, then it's declared the state within a state to be sovereign, and other states should be able to launch a war against the parasitic state, as has been happening with Obama's drones in tribal Pakistan.

If there was any real justice in the world, Dick Cheney would be woken up in the middle of the night, have a black bag shoved over his head, and be subjected to enhanced interrogation for several years before being left for dead.

What an evil fucker.

@chingalera, I'm not saying there aren't plenty of people with legitimate criticisms of Obama. If all Obama critics were trolls, I'd have to include myself in that. I've said several times on this very site, that I consider him a huge disappointment, even more so because I had high hopes.

Again, I don't think this is a partisan issue. I don't see anyone in the US political scene with what I consider a remotely sensible point of view.

And the "good guys, bad guys" thing was sarcasm... I thought the tone was pretty obvious. And yes, my scenario was entirely hypothetical, that was the point. It's the same fictional "ticking time bomb scenario" that torture, excuse me, "enhanced interrogation" proponents espouse, and I don't buy it there either.

I second @JustSaying here -- what exactly does it tell you? (Snowden seeking refuge in countries with abysmal human rights records)

What it tells me is that it is pretty pathetic that Snowden's best chances for freedom and a life outside of a concrete cell in Gitmo come from someplace like Venezuela, Ecuador, or Russia as compared to his home, the "land of the free" USA. I think it says much more about the current government and political environment in the US than it does about Snowden.

Given my take on it, I think it is laughable to accuse Snowden of hypocrisy. Aim that word at an entity that deserves it -- the country and government that labels itself:

*the "land of the free" (except for those that we lock up in indefinite detention without trial, those guilty of thoughtcrime, anyone trying to travel freely outside of the country or even from state to state, etc.),

*"home of the brave" (except for any vague threat of 'terrorists', in which case we ask everyone to panic and allow a friendly TSA officer to treat you like a sock puppet, in spite of the fact that you're 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than a terrorist),

*originator of the bill of rights (unless the government has some tenuous and self serving reason to revoke any/all of your rights: Free speech? Hah! Free press? Hah! Unreasonable search and seizure? No such thing! Due process? Hah! Speedy and public trial? Hah! By a jury? Hah! Cruel and unusual punishments? Waterboarding and other 'enhanced interrogation techniques' don't count! The government laughs at the bill of rights and pisses on their grave.),

*bastion of democracy (except I don't remember voting on ANY of the shit that Snowden brought to our attention, and it seems that neither do any/most of our elected 'representatives' -Hah!), and

*home of the American dream (as long as your dream doesn't involve freedom from any of the myriad transgressions listed above).

Oh how my once proud nation has fallen.

If I thought he would actually get a fair trial, I would agree with you.

But let's be honest, if the US gets hold of him, he'll disappear into Guantanamo, probably be "enhancedly interrogated" and the best he could hope for would be a military tribunal in a decade or two.

First thing I thought when I saw the title, "Oh boy, another enhanced interrogation technique."

>> ^thumpa28:

Oh wow i see what you did there, its like prison minus the torturing to death bit! Wait, i got one too!
I wonder if the people facing the death penalty in Texas can blink 'electric chair'1!!!
Ohohoh i love Videosift for its deep socio political comment and talking cats.
>> ^Payback:
>> ^honkeytonk73:
What I got from his Morse code message was 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques in use', not 'torture'.

Ya... I wonder what the Gitmo detainees call their little home-away-from-home.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58&sns=em

Oh wow i see what you did there, its like prison minus the torturing to death bit! Wait, i got one too!

I wonder if the people facing the death penalty in Texas can blink 'electric chair'1!!!

Ohohoh i love Videosift for its deep socio political comment and talking cats.

>> ^Payback:

>> ^honkeytonk73:
What I got from his Morse code message was 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques in use', not 'torture'.

Ya... I wonder what the Gitmo detainees call their little home-away-from-home.

>> ^honkeytonk73:

What I got from his Morse code message was 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques in use', not 'torture'.


Ya... I wonder what the Gitmo detainees call their little home-away-from-home.

What I got from his Morse code message was 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques in use', not 'torture'.

One common argument for supporting waterboarding/"enhanced interrogation techniques" is that terrorists wouldn't hesitate to torture and wouldn't care about prisoner rights.

While true, that still should have no bearing on how we choose to treat others. It really is the political equivalent of "but Johnny's parents let him do this." To which we would reply that it doesn't matter what Johnny's parents let him do or how other kids act, we are different.

A moral that acts one way only if someone treats you in the same fashion isn't a moral at all. Cheers to you, Senator McCain.

Not that I'm defending the Democrats, since I think both parties suck. But. Has there ever been an instance where a Democrat pundit or a clearly left-leaning organization ever changed the terminology of a commonly accepted phrase or concept in order to manipulate public opinion?

Because the whole Estate Tax/Death Tax, Public Option/Government Option, Torture/Enhanced Interrogation Techniques phenomenon where common phrases get changed to make people change their opinion on things seems to clearly be a Republican thing.

It just reminds me of the video of the Rand Paul supporter curb stomping the MoveOn.org protester. Has there EVER been an instance where the opposite is true and you have a left-leaning supporter committing violence or even threatening violence to a right-leaning person?

It's actually a new form of "enhanced interrogation" called Shake-Boarding