Talleyrand stole that quote from Alexander the Great: "I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion."

Well put. I think that the republican line that "harsh interrogation techniques are not torture" is deeply insincere. As far as I can tell, that's not what any of them really believe, including Cheney.

Rather, they simply think that torture is justified and permissible when it comes to enemies of our country. They see all detainees as evil inscrutable foreigners who hate americans because of our freedom and faith. And that torturing an evil person is a small price to pay if it may save American lives.

I'm impressed by how Matthew Alexander cut through the bullshit and addressed the core beliefs of the right wing directly.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Doesn't even pass the most basic test of logic. If 'torture & abuse' was the foundation of terrorist recruiting methods, then why did terrorists attack on 9/11? Or at Mogudishu? The Cole? Torture isn't the reason; it's just a convenient scapegoat.
This guy may believe in his position, but that doesn't mean he's accurate. He's selling books, and targeting the anti-war left as an audience. Whether because that's his own personal ideology or whether he's just a smart business guy doesn't matter. What matters is the veracity of his argument. His position is opinion based. For every Matthew Alexander, there is one who has the opposite opinion. Who you pick as 'right' entirely depends on your political persuasion.


Seriously... How do you talk about logic, but completely lack your own?

He is talking about his experience in Iraq. He is talking about very recent history. Did you miss that? Or did you latch onto the one thing that, in your mind, created an inconsistency? "Oh, oh... no he didn't! If I interpret what he said the way I want... Checkmate, bi**hes!" Yes, why use context when it doesn't fit what you believe in?

-- Starting at 1:25 --
-- --
"At the prison where I conducted interrogations, we heard day in and day out, foreign fighters who had been captured state that the number one reason they had come to fight in Iraq was because of torture and abuse.

So my team of interrogators realized that torture and abuse was counterproductive to what we were trying to accomplish in the long run. We were basically handing Al Qaeda it number one recruiting tool."
-- --
-- end --

He is talking about his time in Iraq. When he was the senior military interrogator, arriving to Iraq in 2006. (Hint: that's in the video description and he says it too.) Sweet J, do I have to transcribe everything for you? The video is right there. Try watching it again, actual listen, and don't include a time machine in your explanations.

I would like to visit faro one day.

I have mixed feelings about Bergman's work. He's not one of those directors who I can say I just like overall. For instance, "Winter Light" was for me a revelation. So was "The Hour of the Wolf" and "Persona." But something like "Sawdust and Tinsel" or "Fanny and Alexander"... so theatrical, right? I guess I just like the more cinematically-inclined bergman than the theatrically-inclined. Genius, for sure, but hit or miss for me. Thanks for the post.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Doesn't even pass the most basic test of logic. If 'torture & abuse' was the foundation of terrorist recruiting methods, then why did terrorists attack on 9/11? Or at Mogudishu? The Cole? Torture isn't the reason; it's just a convenient scapegoat.
This guy may believe in his position, but that doesn't mean he's accurate. He's selling books, and targeting the anti-war left as an audience. Whether because that's his own personal ideology or whether he's just a smart business guy doesn't matter. What matters is the veracity of his argument. His position is opinion based. For every Matthew Alexander, there is one who has the opposite opinion. Who you pick as 'right' entirely depends on your political persuasion.


Except that this guy isn't some average Joe off the street trying to sell a book who has an opinion.

He was the SENIOR military interrogator for the Air Force in charge of tracking down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who conducted/supervised over 1000 interrogations.

I think this guy has a bit more credibility and first-hand knowlege of the topic. Even more-so that Cheney.

Or you.

Doesn't even pass the most basic test of logic. If 'torture & abuse' was the foundation of terrorist recruiting methods, then why did terrorists attack on 9/11? Or at Mogudishu? The Cole? Torture isn't the reason; it's just a convenient scapegoat.

This guy may believe in his position, but that doesn't mean he's accurate. He's selling books, and targeting the anti-war left as an audience. Whether because that's his own personal ideology or whether he's just a smart business guy doesn't matter. What matters is the veracity of his argument. His position is opinion based. For every Matthew Alexander, there is one who has the opposite opinion. Who you pick as 'right' entirely depends on your political persuasion.

Ha. Socrates would probably have liked "take no care for the morrow."
Diogenes, they guy who metaphorically told Alexander the Great to fuck off, would surely have like it.

Huzza! My close personal friend Alexander Rybak won! *promote

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Transhumanism, Singularity, Denis Alexander, Posthuman, Transhuman' to 'Transhumanism, Singularity, Denis Alexander, Posthuman, Transhuman, insight' - edited by kronosposeidon

0:55 Tchaikovsky's "Coronation March for Alexander III" Where in the world did they dig that one up?

under the bush administration the DEA and other related federal institutions (DOJ)were given the authority to over-ride state laws.
i believe it was in 2004.
they have been selective in their prosecution of said authority,mainly in california.
the question of state rights/laws trumping federal law has been a contentious subject since the beginning of america.
i would refer to the federalist papers,article 51,in which alexander hamilton and james madison make such an argument on state vs federal powers.
i swear,its almost like we are living in bizzaro world,where republican and democrat have flipped ideologies on these matters.
how can something you do in the privacy of your own home,harm noone,can be considered against the law?
thanks to henry anslinger and his propaganda machine in the late 30's and early 40's demonizing weed,the american citizen has had to endure this egregious breach in our right to privacy.
its an inane,ill-thought and redundant law,based on bad science and even worse social engineering.
and we call ourselves free..pfffft.

Alexander is a cutie pie with a good voice. This will appeal to the young girls. (Oh, and he is Russian, and the composer of the song).

My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister - Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above," I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine - who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle - I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence.

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain, that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond, was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip.

"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"

A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

"O! Don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. "Pray don't do it, sir."

"Tell us your name!" said the man. "Quick!"

"Pip, sir."

"Once more," said the man, staring at me. "Give it mouth!"

"Pip. Pip, sir."

"Show us where you live," said the man. "Pint out the place!"

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church.

The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself - for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet - when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously.

"You young dog," said the man, licking his lips, "what fat cheeks you ha' got."

I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and not strong.

"Darn me if I couldn't eat em," said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, "and if I han't half a mind to't!"

I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn't, and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; partly, to keep myself from crying.

"Now lookee here!" said the man. "Where's your mother?"

"There, sir!" said I.

He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"There, sir!" I timidly explained. "Also Georgiana. That's my mother."

"Oh!" said he, coming back. "And is that your father alonger your mother?"

"Yes, sir," said I; "him too; late of this parish."

"Ha!" he muttered then, considering. "Who d'ye live with - supposin' you're kindly let to live, which I han't made up my mind about?"

"My sister, sir - Mrs. Joe Gargery - wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir."

"Blacksmith, eh?" said he. And looked down at his leg.

After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his.

"Now lookee here," he said, "the question being whether you're to be let to live. You know what a file is?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you know what wittles is?"

"Yes, sir."

After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.

"You get me a file." He tilted me again. "And you get me wittles." He tilted me again. "You bring 'em both to me." He tilted me again. "Or I'll have your heart and liver out." He tilted me again.

I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands, and said, "If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I could attend more."

He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weather-cock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:

"You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate. Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. There's a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a-keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?"

I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in the morning.

"Say Lord strike you dead if you don't!" said the man.

I said so, and he took me down.

"Now," he pursued, "you remember what you've undertook, and you remember that young man, and you get home!"

"Goo-good night, sir," I faltered.

"Much of that!" said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. "I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!"

At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms - clasping himself, as if to hold himself together - and limped towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in.

When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on again towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into the marshes here and there, for stepping-places when the rains were heavy, or the tide was in.

The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered - like an unhooped cask upon a pole - an ugly thing when you were near it; the other a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But, now I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.

You are taking it out of context. He was referring the to legend of the Gordian Knot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_Knot

This is just a case of culture shock...I am sure the Greeks found it pretty insulting as it is meant as a phase to associated to great cunning and not that of power and might. Alexander the Great was a student of Aristotle remember, he wasn't just a warrior, he was multidimensional.

This is no doubt just as large a diplomatic insult as he did to England when he sent back the statue they gave him. His diplomatic abilities seemed to be poor at best. If you don't give him a teleprompter he's clueless.

Good video though, thanks blank

Do you know something I don't know?

In reply to this comment by jwray:
laughing silently to myself (lstm)