Dennis Prager asks some pretty good questions. Comments?

Dennis Prager: Nine Questions the Left Needs to Answer About Torture
Townhall.com | April 28, 2009 | Dennis Prager
April 28, 2009

Any human being with a functioning conscience or a decent heart loathes torture. Its exercise has been a blight on humanity. With this in mind, those who oppose what the Bush administration did to some terror suspects may be justified. But in order to ascertain whether they are, they need to respond to some questions:

1. Given how much you rightly hate torture, why did you oppose the removal of Saddam Hussein, whose prisons engaged in far more hideous tortures, on thousands of times more people, than America did -- all of whom, moreover, were individuals and families who either did nothing or simply opposed tyranny? One assumes, furthermore, that all those Iraqi innocents Saddam had put into shredding machines or whose tongues were cut out and other hideous tortures would have begged to be waterboarded.

2. Are all forms of painful pressure equally morally objectionable? In other words, are you willing to acknowledge that there are gradations of torture as, for example, there are gradations of burns, with a third-degree burn considerably more injurious and painful than a first-degree burn? Or is all painful treatment to be considered torture? Just as you, correctly, ask proponents of waterboarding where they draw their line, you, too, must explain where you draw your line.

3. Is any maltreatment of anyone at any time -- even a high-level terrorist with knowledge that would likely save innocents’ lives -- wrong? If there is no question about the identity of a terror suspect , and he can provide information on al-Qaida -- for the sake of clarity, let us imagine that Osama Bin Laden himself were captured -- could America do any form of enhanced interrogation involving pain and/or deprivation to him that you would consider moral and therefore support?

4. If lawyers will be prosecuted for giving legal advice to an administration that you consider immoral and illegal, do you concede that this might inhibit lawyers in the future from giving unpopular but sincerely argued advice to the government in any sensitive area? They will, after all, know that if the next administration disapproves of their work, they will be vilified by the media and prosecuted by the government.

5. Presumably you would acknowledge that the release of the classified reports on the handling of high-level, post-Sept. 11 terror suspects would inflame passions in many parts of the Muslim world. If innocents were murdered because nonviolent cartoons of Muhammad were published in a Danish newspaper, presumably far more innocents will be tortured and murdered with the release of these reports and photos. Do you accept any moral responsibility for any ensuing violence against American and other civilians?

6. Many members of the intelligence community now feel betrayed and believe that the intelligence community will be weakened in their ability to fight the most vicious organized groups in the world. As reported in the Washington Post, former intelligence officer “(Mark) Lowenthal said that fear has paralyzed agents on the ground. Apparently, many of those in the know are certain that life-saving information was gleaned from high level terror suspects who were waterboarded. As Mike Scheuer, former head of the CIA unit in charge of tracking Osama bin Laden, said, ”We were very certain that the interrogation procedures procured information that was worth having.” If, then, the intelligence community has been adversely affected, do you believe it can still do the work necessary to protect tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people from death and maiming?

7. Will you seek to prosecute members of Congress such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who were made aware of the waterboarding of high-level suspects and voiced no objections?

8. Would you agree to releasing the photos of the treatment of Islamic terrorists only if accompanied by photos of what their terror has done to thousands of innocent people around the world? Would you agree to photos -- or at least photo re-enactments -- of, let us say, Iraqi children whose faces were torn off with piano wire by Islamists in Iraq? If not, why not? Isn’t context of some significance here?

9. You say that America’s treatment of terror suspects will cause terrorists to treat their captives, especially Americans, more cruelly. On what grounds do you assert this? Did America’s far more moral treatment of Japanese prisoners than Japan’s treatment of American prisoners in World War II have any impact on how the Japanese treated American and other prisoners of war? Do you think that evil people care how morally pure America is?

If you do not address these questions, it would appear that you care less about morality and torture than about vengeance against the Bush administration.

Source: Townhall.com - Printer Friendly

Moe, Larry and Curly would make more sense and prove themselves to be far
more responsible.

The country's in the very best of hands...

The right in America is a bigger threat to the statist than radical islam.

Unfortunately, the statist control most of the media and academia and have been very successful the last few years convincing a large portion of the population republicans should be feared more than radicalized muslims. Whose numbers are believed to be in the millions throughout the world, by the way.

Obama is sending these people 900 million dollars. (That we know of, anyway)




Video post not working.
Here's a link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYSib...rom=PL&index=5

Kinda reminds me of a democrat tea party.

Good thing the FBI arrested that Tea Party lunatic posting on twitter.

@GWB's cut/paste:

To #'s 1-3, torture violates the law. If we tortured, we violated the law. The definition of what constitutes torture under the relevant convention is spelled out in somewhat ambiguous terms in that convention. The question isn't a moral one but a legal one, so in that vein, #'s 1-3 completely miss the mark. When we seek to prosecute someone for a crime, we don't always ask ourselves whether the prosecution is immoral or whether the crime was moral. We still lock up Jean Valjean for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family because stealing is illegal.

As to #4, a lawyer has a duty not to misrepresent the law or knowingly quote bad case law. If these memoranda constituted misrepresentation, then the relevant Bar Associations might have something to say about that. Also, insofar as those memos authorized something the lawyers knew was illegal, they should be punished. If this chills the authoring of opinions falsely saying it's okay to violate the law, then that comes as an added bonus.

#5 -- nothing has happened. At least nothing concrete and in reaction to the memos. This is pure speculation. Not completely without basis, but speculation nonetheless.

#6 -- I'm not too concerned that the intelligence community will feel "betrayed." Some people left the organization, blew the whistle and refused to participate in conduct they knew to be illegal. I still don't understand why these college educated operatives aren't being prosecuted when our men and women in the armed forces are being prosecuted and imprisoned for the same crimes (and less).

#7 -- if they did something illegal (which is yet to be determined), then absolutely.

#8 & 9 -- to paraphrase Shepherd Smith, "This is America, we don't [effing] torture."

Amazing, you're actually quoting a Fox News Entertainer to back up your claims that torture is wrong. THAT, is hilarious!!!

Not for his expertise, but rather for the expert way in which he phrased the response. It really should be as simple as Smith said it is. We don't effing torture.

Sometimes the best quotes come from the most unexpected sources.

I think this should be on pay-per-view...

Olbermann presses Hannity on his waterboard offer

April 28, 2009
Barry Honey, Can We Talk about Torture?
By Kyle-Anne Shiver

My dear Mr. President,(Prune editorial - she's talking about BO) I've just
finished reading the formerly top-secret, classified CIA memos detailing
interrogation techniques used in the aftermath of 9/11. And frankly, Barry
honey, I'm shocked.

Positively shocked that any President of the U.S.A. would make such
documents public knowledge.

As a mother, who has invested blood, sweat, tears and every last vestige
of my natural hair color into raising my children, I am appalled at the
apparent casualness with which you are handling your #1 duty, protecting
the lives of American citizens.

At this very minute, I'm considering forming a new organization, Mothers
Against Wimpy Defense.

Before I start organizing millions of mothers with strollers and grade-
schoolers in tow to march on the White House, perhaps I could attempt a
bit of verbal negotiation.

Not only have you given terrorists enough comedy at America's expense to
fuel Al Jazeera for the entire time span of your presidency, you've told their
plotters and leaders exactly how to train for the wimpy Americans and their
host of morally-confused psychologists, who equate the real torture of
gouging of human eyes with a forceful, closed-handed slap across the face
and the real torture of removing every finger and toe with the temporary,
psychological perception of the sensation of drowning.

Now the silliest thing in all of this -- for a mother who has fought
hand-to-hand combat with a teenaged son twice her size -- is that these
same arbiters of what could be justified to save the lives of countless
innocent Americans, would most likely condemn the parental disciplinary
methods used in this Country with terrific success for the past 2-1/3
centuries.

How many among prior generations of Americans got through childhood
without a single trip to the woodshed with an angry, had-it-up-to-here
father? How many American children (except Bill Maher and Rachel
Maddow) escaped childhood without a single mouth-washing with bitter
soap? How many of our little ones thought messing with Mom was a good
idea?

In other words, Barry Honey, now that I've read the stringent limits under
which our CIA folks were forced to operate in the aftermath of 9/11, I'm
actually quite stunned that there was such a degree of restraint. The
memos actually serve to demonstrate America's exemplary high standards in
the realm of dealings with our attackers, not the reverse, as has been
put forward by Democrats for the past 8 years.

Unlike our Islamic terrorist enemies, we were not amputating fingers or
extracting fingernails. We were not gouging eyes from their sockets. We
were not applying high-amp electrical shocks to the genitalia of enemy
combatants in our custody. In fact, we were so darned civilized that the
only shock in any of this is the degree of rancor with which our CIA
protectors are now apparently regarded by a namby-pamby press and the
Democrats in Congress seeking show trials and witch burnings.

Which brings us to the matter, Barry Honey, of your politicizing the role of
Commander in Chief. It is one thing -- and an altogether expected thing --
to politicize the presidency in domestic policy matters. It is certainly also
expectable that during an election campaign, candidates will agree or
disagree with important foreign policy decisions of the current president.
But in making these classified-for-USA-protection documents public, you,
dear Sir, have stepped over the line into banana-republic domain.

In this, you are behaving like a man, having just stormed the palace gates
with armed guerillas, having imprisoned the former occupant and ransacked
the place, puts on full public display whatever he can find that may justify
his coup. Bringing these documents to light to the full accompaniment of
Party clamors for blood, is quite akin to the banana-republic dictator
beaming in the wake of his successful coup and declaring that all evil deeds
will now be punished.

All I can say is that your actions in politicizing the role of Commander in
Chief, not only disgrace you, Barry Honey, they disgrace this Nation and
sadly may have consequences for generations to come. Every enemy we
have now knows that you disdain America more than you disdain them and
that you have no qualms about sacrificing our defense personnel on
the altar of politics.

Could you possibly be more inept? (Prune editorial - BO is very inept)

With every move you make as Commander in Chief, you give more than
ample proof to my old voters' axiom: Never, ever put a man in charge of
your military defense who has not at the very, very least, successfully
done battle with his own teenagers.

Parents, who have made it to the successful end of preparing children for
upstanding adult lives understand that in the face of one's children, as in
the face of one's enemies, the adults stick together. Bickering over tactics
is absolutely, positively, every single time conducted behind closed doors
and out of earshot. This is the only way to run a healthy family in the best
interests of children, and it is the only way to run a healthy foreign policy
in the best interests of this Nation and our defense.

God help you when your girls are teens.

Until then, God help America.

I remain, Barry Honey, your faithful dissenting constituent. Daily, however,
my faith in you shrinks as my dissent grows more fitful.
(Prune editorial - having faith in BO is totally useless. It's natural to have
dissent for someone who's political policies are so odoriferous)

Never trust a woman named Kyle

__________________
Dr. Spaceman: Now Jenna, medically speaking for your height your weight puts you what we call the "disgusting" range. Fortunately there are solutions. For example, crystal meth has been shown to be very effective. How important is tooth retention to you?

Ann is my girlfriend. We think very much alike, even when we're kidding,
which I'll never accuse a liberal of noticing.

Muslims: 'We Do That On First Dates'
by Ann Coulter (aka my girl friend)

Without any pretense of an argument, which liberals are neurologically
incapable of, the mainstream media are now asserting that our wussy
interrogation techniques at Guantanamo constituted "torture" and have
irreparably harmed America's image abroad.

Only the second of those alleged facts is true: The president's release of
the Department of Justice interrogation memos undoubtedly hurt America's
image abroad, as we are snickered at in capitals around the world, where
they know what real torture is. The Arabs surely view these memos as a
pack of lies. What about the pills Americans have to turn us [sic]
homosexual?

The techniques used against the most stalwart al-Qaida members, such as
Abu Zubaydah, included one terrifying procedure referred to as "the
attention grasp." As described in horrifying detail in the Justice Department
memo, the "attention grasp" consisted of:

"(G)rasping the individual with both hands, one hand on each side of the
collar opening, in a controlled and quick motion. In the same motion as the
grasp, the individual is drawn toward the interrogator."

The end.

There are rumors that Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney wanted to take away the
interrogators' Altoids before they administered "the grasp," but Department
of Justice lawyers deemed this too cruel.

And that's not all! As the torments were gradually increased, next up the
interrogation ladder came "walling." This involves pushing the terrorist
against a flexible wall, during which his "head and neck are supported with
a rolled hood or towel that provides a C-collar effect to prevent whiplash."

People pay to have a lot rougher stuff done to them at Six Flags Great
Adventure. Indeed, with plastic walls and soft neck collars, "walling" may be
the world's first method of "torture" in which all the implements were made
by Fisher-Price.

As the memo darkly notes, walling doesn't cause any pain, but is supposed
to induce terror by making a "loud noise": "(T)he false wall is in part
constructed to create a loud sound when the individual hits it, which will
further shock and surprise." (!!!)

If you need a few minutes to compose yourself after being subjected to
that horror, feel free to take a break from reading now. Sometimes a cold
compress on the forehead is helpful, but don't let it drip or you might end
up waterboarding yourself.

The CIA's interrogation techniques couldn't be more ridiculous if they were
out of Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch:

Cardinal! Poke her with the soft cushions! ...

Hmm! She is made of harder stuff! Cardinal Fang! Fetch ... THE COMFY
CHAIR!

So you think you are strong because you can survive the soft cushions.
Well, we shall see. Biggles! Put her in the Comfy Chair! ...

Now -- you will stay in the Comfy Chair until lunchtime, with only a cup of
coffee at 11.

Further up the torture ladder -- from Guantanamo, not Monty Python --
comes the "insult slap," which is designed to be virtually painless, but
involves the interrogator invading "the individual's personal space."

If that doesn't work, the interrogator shows up the next day wearing the
same outfit as the terrorist. (Awkward.)

I will spare you the gruesome details of the CIA's other comical
interrogation techniques and leap directly to the penultimate "torture" in
their arsenal: the caterpillar.

In this unspeakable brutality, a harmless caterpillar is placed in the
terrorist's cell. Justice Department lawyers expressly denied the
interrogators' request to trick the terrorist into believing the caterpillar was
a "stinging insect."

Human rights groups have variously described being trapped in a cell with a
live caterpillar as "brutal," "soul-wrenching" and, of course, "adorable."

If the terrorist manages to survive the non-stinging caterpillar maneuver --
the most fiendish method of torture ever devised by the human mind that
didn't involve being forced to watch "The View" -- CIA interrogators had
another sadistic trick up their sleeves.

I am not at liberty to divulge the details, except to mention the procedure's
terror-inducing name: "the ladybug."

Finally, the most savage interrogation technique at Guantanamo was
"waterboarding," which is only slightly rougher than the Comfy Chair.

Tens of thousands of our troops were waterboarded over the past three
decades as part of their training, but not until it was done to Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed -- mastermind of the 9/11 attack on America -- were liberal
consciences shocked.

I think they were mostly shocked because they couldn't figure out how
Joey Buttafuoco ended up in Guantanamo.

As non-uniformed combatants, all of the detainees at Guantanamo could
have been summarily shot on the battlefield under the Laws of War.

Instead, we gave them comfy chairs, free lawyers, better food than is
served in Afghani caves, prayer rugs, recreational activities and top-flight
medical care -- including one terrorist who was released, whereupon he
rejoined the jihad against America, after being fitted for an expensive
artificial leg at Guantanamo, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.

Only three terrorists -- who could have been shot -- were waterboarded.
This is not nearly as bad as "snowboarding," which is known to cause
massive buttocks pain and results in approximately 10 deaths per year.

Normal human beings -- especially those who grew up with my older
brother, Jimmy -- can't read the interrogation memos without laughing.

At Al-Jazeera, they don't believe these interrogation memos are for real.
Muslims look at them and say: THIS IS ALL THEY'RE DOING? We do that for
practice. We do that to our friends.

But The New York Times is populated with people who can't believe they
live in a country where people would put a caterpillar in a terrorist's cell.

Ann Coulter is Legal Affairs Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS and author of
"High Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Slander," ""How to Talk to a Liberal (If
You Must)," "Godless," "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be
Republicans" and most recently, Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and their Assault
on America.

Prune editorial - do the hard-lined left-winged extremist really belive that
we honestly and truly torture?

Only a fool would say that we do.

NOTE: A fool is someone who knows right from wrong but refuses to do
that which is right.

Ann is the perfect lady. A beautiful, blonde, elegant genius who is caring beyond belief. She has spent the last while caring for her ailing mother, who recently died. May she RIP.

I loved that piece you quoted Prune.

Prune's girlfriend is a stick, as ECO likes to say, with elegant little perkies. Michelle Malkin, on the other hand, has potential...

Prune, your article likens waterboarding to the comfy chair. It loses me there. This is the United States of America and we don't torture [anymore].

With the care the aggressive interrogators took to prevent any bodily harm,
kept doctors at hand in the event something might go wrong, did no
physical damage, and cared for their safety is far from torture.

Perhaps your comfy chair analogy has a lot of truth in it.

Would you volunteer to be waterboarded?

I sure as hell wouldn't. I prefer the comfy chair.

We've sure had plenty of volunteers do it. It ain't that big of a deal. I'd rather do that, than be pepper sprayed or tasered. Which the police do during training.

It was considered a war crime when the Japanese did it to US troops, it was considered torture when the Communists in N. Korea used it on US troops to force false confessions, it was considered torture when Pol Pot did it, it was considered torture when it was done in the Spanish Inquisition. The /only/ reason it was ever used on US troops was to prepare them for the torture (and it /was/ called torture by the US) that they would receive at the hands of the Communists (if they were capture) in an effort to force a /false/ confession out of our troops.

I would darn sure prefer being waterboarded by USA aggressive interrogators
that anyone else. I know I won't die or be permanently harmed.

There's a big difference.

Maybe you could volunteer to do it with Sean Hannity who said he would do it for charity, yet amazingly hasn't officially set anything up more than a week after making his "brave" declaration.

Given the political climate and the litigation happy administration, Hannity's lawyers probably advised him against it......

From the UK Telegraph.

Barack Obama and the CIA: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?
Posted By: Gerald Warner at Apr 24, 2009 at 18:41:00

If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.

Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.

That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley, Virginia to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda.

"Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed.

So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradiated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers.

Obama promised his CIA audience that nobody would be prosecuted for past actions. That has already been contradicted by leftist groups with a revanchist ambition to put Republicans, headed if possible by Condoleezza Rice, in the dock. Talk about playing party politics with national security. Martin Scheinin, the United Nations special investigator for human rights, claims that senior figures, including former vice president Dick Cheney, could face prosecution overseas. Ponder that - once you have got over the difficulty of locating the United Nations and human rights within the same dimension.

President Pantywaist Obama should have thought twice before sitting down to play poker with Dick Cheney. The former vice president believes documents have been selectively published and that releasing more will prove how effective the interrogation techniques were. Under Dubya's administration, there was no further atrocity on American soil after 9/11.

President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cosying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?

If our interrogation techniques were so "wussy" as Coulter says, then why is there evidence that some of our captives died from them?

Water-boarding, no matter how well supervised, can induce a heart attack.

You got that right in trying to read red text. My eyes prefer black bold when emphasis is wanted in getting points across.

As evidenced by all of the terror attacks since he has been in office

These techniques had been thrown around in the media well before Obama was prez...I'm fairly certain there aren't many terrorists out there that were convinced to not wage war because of the possibility they might be tortured if they are captured...Lame article

__________________
Dr. Spaceman: Now Jenna, medically speaking for your height your weight puts you what we call the "disgusting" range. Fortunately there are solutions. For example, crystal meth has been shown to be very effective. How important is tooth retention to you?