The Cellar - Torture memos

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Actually, Jill, what such of the record as we without clearances and accesses know is that it did work and we did bust up some impending attacks from what we choked out of those three men. Apparently in amongst whatever else they might have said, they also told us some things that were accurate. And we determine this by following up on the leads; some leads no doubt didn't pan out, and certain others evidently did.

Despite their manifest desire to repeat their successes of 9/11, no repetitions have occurred. That isn't an accident, I feel sure. Don't you, on consideration?

It looks like the truth of the matter is more subtle than you're conceiving it to be.

This rather reinforces my argument:

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What stood between the attacks of 1941 and the rebirth of Japan as a civilized nation were five years of merciless warfare, the incineration by napalm and nuclear attack of nearly 400,000 Japanese civilians, an intransigent demand for unconditional surrender, and six years of postwar military occupation by the United States. The result was the most benevolent turnaround of an entire nation in history.

The victory over Japan remains America’s greatest foreign policy success. Today, we take for granted a peaceful, productive, mutually beneficial relationship with the Japanese people. But this friendship was earned with blood, struggle, and an unrepentant drive to victory. The beneficent occupation of Japan—during which not one American was killed in hostile military action—and the corresponding billions in American aid were entirely post-surrender phenomena. Prior to their surrender, the Japanese could expect nothing but death from the Americans.

From here.

My contention is that there is no fundamental difference between fighting against the anti-freedom hegemonists this time or then -- that it is the same regardless of time or place. You claim to find some kind of difference, without actually outlining what you conceive this alleged difference to be. What are details of date or language next to the essential question of "Who's for a liberal social order, and who's against?" Thus, I support Israelis against Arabs, America against the Jihadists, and so on. There are people on this board who have the colossal stupidity and fascistic sympathies -- conscious, as in tw's case, or not, as in Redux's (or the average leftwinger's, to be blunt) -- to object to my approach, and vehemently.

I get this sort of half-thought-through argument all the time from the opposition. It is tedious. They seem to avoid knowledge, preferring the shibboleths they've been spoon-fed.

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla (Post 562914)

Actually, Jill, what such of the record as we without clearances and accesses know is that it did work and we did bust up some impending attacks.....

I get this sort of half-thought-through argument all the time from the opposition. It is tedious....

Putting aside the contention that you know that it worked despite the numerous DoD, DoJ and CIA IG reports and other documents that have been released and suggest, at a minimum, that there is no such certainty....and that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" were highly questionable as to their legal justification.

We know that Bush/Cheney and neo-cons like yourself believe that the Geneva Conventions and UNCAT are tedious.

Still the law.....the supreme law of the land.

Article VI: This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land;

Buth why should that matter?

If the president authorized it, it must be legal:

“And so...if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.”
~ Condi Rice

You guys are our "freedom fighters" and answer to a higher authority than the Constitution.

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla (Post 562914)

There are people on this board who have the colossal stupidity and fascistic sympathies -- conscious, as in tw's case, or not, as in Redux's (or the average leftwinger's, to be blunt) -- to object to my approach, and vehemently.

UG....I generally refrain from playing the fascist card as you so often feel a need to do to characterize those with whom you disagree.

But wouldnt those like yourself who believe a president (and top subordinates) is the law or above the law ("...if it was authorized by the president...") be the ones with fascistic sympathies?

And here, I thought the Department of Justice is responsible for upholding the law.....hardly a fascistic sympathy.

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla (Post 562914)

Actually, Jill, what such of the record as we without clearances and accesses know is that it did work and we did bust up some impending attacks from what we choked out of those three men.

With all due respect, that is the complete opposite of what we know. I have provided links to first-hand accounts, stating that the timelines alleged don't work, that the information that led to "bust[ing] up some impending attacks" came from other detainees, and said information was provided with standard interrogation methods. You've provided no evidence to dispute the sources I provided. You appear to be buying what you're being told by the right-wing media, without questioning the veracity of their claims.

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Apparently in amongst whatever else they might have said, they also told us some things that were accurate. And we determine this by following up on the leads; some leads no doubt didn't pan out, and certain others evidently did.

Pure speculation without any support.

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Despite their manifest desire to repeat their successes of 9/11, no repetitions have occurred. That isn't an accident, I feel sure. Don't you, on consideration?

Of course it's not an accident. But you provide no evidence that torturing detainees is the reason there have been no repetitions. There weren't any repetitions of the 1993 WTC bombings for 9 years, and we weren't torturing anyone in the aftermath of that attack.

And yet we knew that Bin Laden was "Determined to Strike in the U.S.", and we even knew that the plans included hijacking airliners, and we knew all of this through traditional intelligence gathering techniques.

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Originally Posted by August 6, 2001 presidential daily briefing

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - - service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.

Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---, Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack.

Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.

Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

Which President got this briefing? Which President ignored it, to all of our detriment and peril?

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

It looks like the truth of the matter is more subtle than you're conceiving it to be.

It looks like the truth is entirely different from what you're conceiving it to be.

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

This rather reinforces my argument:

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No, you did not claim that it is the same regardless of time or place. That is why you believe you can accuse me of not outlining what the difference is. Let me show you our exchange again so you don't have to go back and look for it, highlighting the relevant portions.

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Originally Posted by Jill

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

We won against Germany, Italy, and Japan by showing the hard visage of war and outfighting them -- outcontending them in the field they themselves chose. Did this turn us into fascists of any description? It did not.

You conflate two entirely different sets of circumstances and attempt to draw parallels that don't exist. I have no problem "outfighting" the enemy on the battlefield. Especially since I'm a Jew, you can be damn sure I have no complaints about beating the crap out of Hitler in the war he started.

. . .

Battlefield /= Prison cell

War /= Interrogations

I hope this "outline" is clear now.

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

What are details of date or language next to the essential question of "Who's for a liberal social order, and who's against?" Thus, I support Israelis against Arabs, America against the Jihadists, and so on.

Huh? I have no idea what "details of date or language next to the essential question, etc." even means. This is just gobbledeegook.

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

There are people on this board who have the colossal stupidity and fascistic sympathies -- conscious, as in tw's case, or not, as in Redux's (or the average leftwinger's, to be blunt) -- to object to my approach, and vehemently.

This sentence doesn't make any sense as written, either. What I think you're trying to say is that other members of this board are too stupid and fascist, whether consciously or unconsciously, to -- what, challenge your approach or vehemence? Again, Huh?

Not to mention, as I explained to classicman, I don't really give a hoot about what you think of tw or Redux or anyone else, personally. I'm having this conversation with you, and if you'd like to continue it, I'd respectfully ask that you refrain from ad hominem and stick to debating the facts, not other posters.

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I get this sort of half-thought-through argument all the time from the opposition. It is tedious. They seem to avoid knowledge, preferring the shibboleths they've been spoon-fed.

Again, argumentum ad hominem.

On the subject of torture, I thought of a good one yesterday.

Tie the subjects hands and feet up and then let them get bitten by sandflies, midgees and mosquitos. They wont be able to scratch, and I reckon it'd drive a person insane.

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Originally Posted by Aliantha (Post 563080)

I would just force them listen to UG for a couple hours....far worse torture.

UG is entertaining. ;) And even more entertaining is the fact that some people take him seriously.

ding ding ding - we have a winner
:)

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Originally Posted by DanaC (Post 561841)

Just as an aside though; it's wrong to say torture isn't effective...look how many witches we managed to root out in the middle-ages.

How many of those people do you think were actually witches? Which is another argument that it doesn't work. People were ratting out anyone and everyone just to make it stop.

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla (Post 562067)

Annoyed, but I wouldn't call it torture. Why do you insist that the most thoughtful, profound people on the board are thoughtless?

We can win, or we can make excuses. We had until recently an Administration who wasn't making excuses, but trying to win. I don't see the same spirit in the Obama Administration, which is why I voted for a real war-fighter, not a socialist-influenced comparative lightweight who by his mere unaggressiveness shall encourage the icky fascistic unfriendlies. It is bad for the Republic, and bad for mankind in general, to encourage these unfriendlies. Show otherwise or shut up.

Well sir, I do not believe you. Anyone who thinks we do not torture, I would be willing to bet if the shoe had been on the other foot, they would be screaming bloody murder for revenge if it had been OUR soldiers who were treated so inhumanely at Abu Ghraib. They would be crying for blood.

And to put everything in perspective, more people die in this country in car crashes every year than were killed on 9-11. More people die of cancer every year. More people die from handguns every year. More people die from alzheimers, or kidney failure, or diabetes. Hell, more people die from the damn flu every year than died in 9-11. Does that mean we shouldn't have gone after the people who attacked us? No. Of course we should have. But attacking a country that had nothing to do with it was wrong. Imprisoning people who had nothing to do with it, and holding them for YEARS without a trial was wrong. And most definitely torturing them was WRONG.

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Originally Posted by sugarpop (Post 563317)

How many of those people do you think were actually witches? Which is another argument that it doesn't work. People were ratting out anyone and everyone just to make it stop.

*blink* well, obviously m'dear, that was my point :P

In answer to your question I think none of them were 'witches'.

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Originally Posted by DanaC (Post 563322)

*blink* well, obviously m'dear, that was my point :P

In answer to your question I think none of them were 'witches'.

After I reread it, I kinda got that. :blush:

I think some of them probably were for sure, but the majority definitely not. I imagine the number of people who were actual witches was probably pretty low.

*slight shrug* all depends what you mean by 'witch'. Mostly 'witches' would have been herbalists and healers. Witches weren't burned for healing. The designation 'witch' meant that they practised 'magic' and cavorted with the devil. Since I don't believe in 'magic' and I don't believe in the devil, I don't believe any of those people could have been 'witches'.

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Originally Posted by Jill (Post 563071)

There weren't any repetitions of the 1993 WTC bombings for 9 years, and we weren't torturing anyone in the aftermath of that attack.

True, but where was our knowledge of the enemy at that time? Nowhere. There seems also this undercurrent of thinking that we for some reason ought simply to tolerate having our buildings knocked down, our people killed, our nation shocked by people of ideas so unpopular they must kill people to make them stick. Why?

I do not hold with that kind of fatuous thinking, and my opponents never seem to extricate themselves from it.

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And yet we knew that Bin Laden was "Determined to Strike in the U.S.", and we even knew that the plans included hijacking airliners, and we knew all of this through traditional intelligence gathering techniques. Which President got this briefing? Which President ignored it, to all of our detriment and peril?

And you forgot that there wasn't anything in that report with a date or a place or anyone named, or even described, as the terrorists? There was nothing in there that could be used to target the men responsible.

It is not a sustainable idea to insist that Bush could only make errors, because, after all, he was trying to commit foreign policy while being Republican. That seems the core of your argument in the above quote.

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War /= Interrogations

By interrogations, you gain intelligence, and with intelligence, you fight better. So it's all the same thing, really. About the only point you really have here is that interrogations differ from overall war about the way infantry differs from close air support; each has its piece of the action.

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I hope this "outline" is clear now. Huh? I have no idea what "details of date or language next to the essential question, etc." even means. This is just gobbledeegook.

I see nothing opaque in the sentence. I'd suggest this failure to get it is owing to a blank refusal to think.

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What I think you're trying to say is that other members of this board are too stupid and fascist, whether consciously or unconsciously, to -- what, challenge your approach or vehemence? Again, Huh?

Here being an example of that blank noncomprehension: what I said was that I am vehemently disagreed with by people of fascist sympathies, not democratic ones. And it looks like you can correlate their vehemence with their lack of enthusiasm for propagating genuine democratic government abroad on the earth. They seem to think that leaving the fascists unmolested -- their villainies the better to perform -- is the best road, the embodiment of wisdom, and we'll all be good good friends. It's been said elsewhere that "It's an old idea, called 'peace at any price.'"

I say its wiser to make no friends of the undemocrats, the fascists, the communists, the other madmen and their tools. I say it is wiser and better to remove these obstacles to human liberty and progress, and to remove them without let or hindrance.

I am proud to be an apostle of liberty. My opponents, however, cannot have such pride, for they do not deserve to, and aren't trying for it in any case -- they're dead to it from the heart upwards.

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Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla (Post 563459)

Actually, we knew quite a bit about al qaeda back then, but Bush thought they weren't all that dangerous so he demoted Richard Clarke and told people to stop talking to him about it. In the summer of 2001, one of our best informed people about al qaeda in the FBI, John O'Neill, left because he had been forced out. Ironically, he had been hired as head of security at the WTC, and he was killed in the attack. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/ He had been warning us another attack was coming, or trying to warn us. It's kinda hard to warn people when they stop listening to you. Carrying on though, Bush ignored the chatter in the summer of 2001 and went on vacation, instead of trying glean any information about how or when or where bin Laden might try to attack inside the United States, even though some people in intelligence had said their hair was fire there was so much chatter. If Clinton had still been in office, there is a chance, however slight (or big), that we might have stopped it, because Clinton took al qaeda seriously, and he warned Bush that al qaeda was the biggest single threat facing America at that time. Too bad Bush choose not to listen to him. So we were hit by them for the second time.

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Bush didn't even TRY to glean any new information. He had been warned, and he chose to look the other way and to NOT investigate the warning or take it seriously.

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It is not a sustainable idea to insist that Bush could only make errors, because, after all, he was trying to commit foreign policy while being Republican. That seems the core of your argument in the above quote.

Trying to commit foreign policy while being republican? WTF does that mean? I thought republicans thought they were the superior party with regard to foreign policy? Clearly though they are not.

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Fighting against the forces of undemocracy and lessened liberty = fighting against the forces of undemocracy and lessened liberty, quite regardless of whether it's under the sky or in a room. I had thought I had made that clear to even the meanest understanding.

By interrogations, you gain intelligence, and with intelligence, you fight better. So it's all the same thing, really. About the only point you really have here is that interrogations differ from overall war about the way infantry differs from close air support; each has its piece of the action.

Not when the intelligence you gain is tainted because of the methods you choose to use, OR the fact that recruiting for the enemy goes up based on the interrogation methods we use. It is a FACT that al qaeda recruitment went up after Abu Ghraib and the knowledge that we used torture, in a prison where it was known Saddan also used torture... How fucking brilliant was that? ummmm, it wasn't. In fact, it couldn't have been MORE STUPID.

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I see nothing opaque in the sentence. I'd suggest this failure to get it is owing to a blank refusal to think.

Here being an example of that blank noncomprehension: what I said was that I am vehemently disagreed with by people of fascist sympathies, not democratic ones. And it looks like you can correlate their vehemence with their lack of enthusiasm for propagating genuine democratic government abroad on the earth. They seem to think that leaving the fascists unmolested -- their villainies the better to perform -- is the best road, the embodiment of wisdom, and we'll all be good good friends. It's been said elsewhere that "It's an old idea, called 'peace at any price.'"

I say its wiser to make no friends of the undemocrats, the fascists, the communists, the other madmen and their tools. I say it is wiser and better to remove these obstacles to human liberty and progress, and to remove them without let or hindrance.

I am proud to be an apostle of liberty. My opponents, however, cannot have such pride, for they do not deserve to, and aren't trying for it in any case -- they're dead to it from the heart upwards.

Since I am one of these people you refer to as "fascist" (even though you seem to clearly not know what that word actually means), I will say this, why exactly is it OUR JOB to propogate democracy across the globe? How is that ANY DIFFERENT from Russia trying to propogate communism? Forcing a form of government on people who may not want it is not democratic by any definition of the word.

And ftr, we have overthrown democratically elected leaders in the middle east (and elsewhere) for the simple fact that they were not friendly to our wanting control over certain aspects of their economy, like OIL. Overthrowing a government that had a leader who was democratically elected by his people, and well liked by his people, is NOT spreading democracy.

You claim the United States is not empirialistic, but yet you tout spreading democracy, in places where people do not want our kind of government. How is that in any way democratic?