Greta and McCain on waterboarding
By John Amato Saturday May 23, 2009 8:00am
Why is it that wingers like Greta still need to ask if waterboarding is torture? Enhanced interrogations are code for torture, but we know that. I guess my brain is getting scrambled by having to watch FOX News constantly try and denounce waterboarding as not really being torture. It's enhanced, it just tastes a little better than before.
Greta: Is waterboarding torture or enhanced interrogation techniques, what words do we use on this?
McCain: It's torture. It's in violation of the Geneva Conventions of the international agreement on torture treaty...singed during the Reagan administration. It goes all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition. It's not a new technique and it is certainly torture.
Did Greta really believe she would get McCain to change his mind on this? Maybe she thought she could break him. Then they get into all the national security stories of the week. Greta wants all the documents released about Cheney and Pelosi and that's when McCain starts wanking along...
At least she brought up Graham rebuking the CIA. McCain is worried about the morale of the CIA? Are they really that weak-kneed? I doubt it, but it's a useful talking point against Pelosi because the media will never say, "hey, these guys are out their in covert world, why would they care what a politician said."
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But admits it is illegal.
Another failed leader.
Amazing.
Different rules for the usual fools
Wrote the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which granted Bush and Company immunity and allowed Bush to redefine Torture to Enhanced interrogation; why would he want Bush and company prosecuted?
McCain is a Co-Conspirator in the Cover Up of Torture.
no it's just an enhanced technique that replicates torture in every way without being actual torture. you feel like you're dying. you could actually die from it. it will scare the living shit out of you and make you say anything to make it stop. but torture? nahhh it just seems like torture, with all those torture by products.
everyone of these f#cking wingnuts that say waterboarding is
not torture, should be taken to the nave seals facility
and be waterboarded as a "real exercise". then we should
hear less of their moronic bs.....NOT !
i guess the dunking of so called witches in salem
was not torture.
if you survive, you are guilty
if you don't survive then, oops, innocent.
I never knew the ray gunn administration was known for it's singing ability.
Why didn't ray gunn the actor make any musicals?
Preferably Busby Berkley.
Waterboarding is TORTURE and against the law. Insane Wing-NutO's entirely embrace and believe in it even though they never got ANY believable or useful info out of it.
Let's see now, the three that were waterboarded six years ago thought they were drowning, spilled their guts, are well and healthy now, and I should feel bad. LOLOLOL Pardon me, but I don't give a happy damn about those three; I care about the 3000 murdered by just one of them. Silly me!
Would you feel the same way if it was three of our guys that were treated in this manner? Anyway, there is a larger issue here. What do you think about the fact that we, as a nation, signed onto treaties that forbid these acts as torture? Does that no longer matter if your needs are met?
See I remember marines being hung by their heels and dragged through the streets long before water boarding. I remember the towers, I remember the Cole (though the current POTUS does not) - I identify with Americans rather than the terrorists; unlike Obama.
Oh, and please point me to the treaties with the terrorists - can't seem to find them. Geneva does not apply and our law said that torture is prolonged physical or mental injury. So we know waterboarding (as we legally applied it) isn't even physical injury and mental??? Well, I could care less if those three have even a mental nightmare from it. There are hundreds of American children who go to bed with a dream of buildings falling with a parent inside. I will save my sympathy for them.
Yet we executed Japanese for waterboarding after WWII.
Oh, and there are hundreds if not thousands of Iraqi kids who will never dream again because bombs were dropped on them.
Japanese did not do what we did. Read and learn. Salt water, urine/feces, making them swallow water until abdomen is completely distended and beating with bats while breaking arms. I think we can safely say they are 1. not the same at any point; and 2. Japanese did commit torture.
So when interrogators sliced the penis of that unarmed helpless detainee - it was a noble cause!
Same deal with the sodomizing of detainee's young children.
And the 200 unarmed, untried, unconvicted people who were "not tortured" to death -
It's not torture when we do it! Ewe!Ess!Aye!
Let's refresh your memory.
We humans are very fragile. There are probably a million ways you could torture someone, but, in the end, it's all torture. It's still against your own laws and International laws. There is a reason the people of the world sat down together to make these agreements and treaties, and that is to protect YOU.
If you remember the towers so well then how concerned are you that we jumped into Iraq instead of going after those that actually carried out 9/11? What is the basis for your comment that the President doesn't remember 9/11 and the Cole? You're being ridiculous!
As far as the treaties go, contact McCain, as I'm sure he has more information on the subject than I do!
With your view on the subject there will quite possibly be many more hundreds of childred going to bed with that very same nightmare. What do you propose we say to them? Do you not understand that as we use torture it helps the enemy's recruitment efforts?
you are an f'n embarrassment to me! Fantasizing lying jerk!
Again.
And dont you think that "waterboarding" escalates to naked pyramids of handcuffed men and boys, some smeared with their own feces? How about boys sodomized with broom handles?
Where does "enhanced interrogation" end, and sadism begin?
You cannot answer that, but allowing a little torture will always lead to alot of it. Thats been proven
If there were more than three, don't you think Liar Pelosi would have leaked it all?? I have great faith in her (and her minions) to do their worst.
Prisoner abuse and water boarding are not related - and the military did a complete investigation (remember the pictures from their investigations that the ACLU wants released for purely voyeur appeal) - Look, this kind of relativism is nonsense. Theoretical arguments in the face of war are just silly
Isn't waterboarding someone over 150 times in a short period a tacit admission that it wasn't working?
And of course there was the case of one prisoner shackled to the ceiling who was an uncharged cab driver, who died from his injuries.
And if all these people deserved this sort of treatment, why were so many not charged, and many even released by booshco, probably nurging a grudge against us.
Why did boosh hold them if there weren't any good charges or then release them if they were guilty where they could now endanger our troops?
Does boosh hate our troops?
Dunno who that is, sorry.
I do know that 540ish were taken, 200ish were released, 1/7 returned to the battlefield, 200ish are still in G, three were waterboarded. No cab driver died in G. Hell, these guys left in G are living better than they ever have in their entire lives when you get right down to it.
I see you're completely ignoring the bipartisan Senate report, the book Torture Team, and Rumsfeld's signature on the memo authorizing abuse of prisoners. More than 3 prisoners were waterboarded. Many more were tortured and abused. At least 100 were killed. The evidence leads all the way up to the top - and it's not as if all of this hasn't been reported. But sure, keep ignoring the evidence...
They counted people who were immediately rearrested by other entities as 'returning to the battlefield,' in fact, 96% of detainees were not taken out of combat arenas. Many who have been found again as fighters, were not fighters. Gitmo makes a man unmarriageable. Some have just gone crazy.
BTW 1/7. There's a common fraction. How many in actual numbers is one seventh vis a vis returned to the battlefield claims (which are bogus)?
The Myth of Return to the Battlefield from Guantanamo
the info you are pulling from the NYT and other failed MSM sources isn't worth a bean. try expanding your source material. The shit you are gathering now is just that -- shit.
it's a fact that some of these detainees were people turned over to coalition forces
by warlords for $. i believe the BUSH administration released 500 or so prisoners.
people like colorado can try to rationalize "enhanced interrogaton" torture all they want. the military was against it. the international community is against it. it's been said by military psychiatrist that they were pressured to find link between saddam and al queda. there's more to this story than just three detainees being water boarded.
The Uniformed Code of Military Justice states
(c) Before a vote is taken on the findings, the military judge or the president of a court-martial without a military judge shall, in the presence of the accused and counsel, instruct the members of the court as to the elements of the offense and charge them -
(1) that the accused must be presumed to be innocent until his guilt is established by legal and competent evidence beyond reasonable doubt;
(2) that in the case being considered, if there is a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the accused, the doubt must be resolved in favor of the accused and he must be acquitted;
(3) that, if there is a reasonable doubt as to the degree of guilt, the finding must be in a lower degree as to which there is no reasonable doubt; and
(4) that the burden of proof to establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt is upon the United States.
_____________________________________________
Actually the pictures were leaked by a soldier using I believe a cellphone camera. And he was immediately accused of treason by the reichwing. And the reichwing tried to stop the release and accused the NYT of undermining the effort, and you had people like bill o'really, and rash limpballs going on air that releasing the pictures were aiding and abetting the enemy, but nary a word about what they depicted, except for inappropriate comparisons to frat pranks.
I was Air Force, Top Secret Clearance, what branch did you serve?
What about 8/6/01?
You know, the PDB that said "bin Laden determined to strike in the USA, possibly using airplanes to crash into buildings."
The whole of the last 8 years was booshco saying look over there," to make us forget the massive screw-up that occurred while they were asleep on watch.
Who was it in the boosh admnistration that said 3000 was, "just a number," when we reached that point in US casualties in Iraq?
And 15 of the 19 who attacked us on 9-11 while booshco was looking the other way, were Saudis, our allies.
Even chaney has given up peddling the line that Saddam had anything to do with 9-11.
Bush Derangement Syndrome - gets boring, I didn't care for him and didn't vote for him.
charles krauthammer came up with that term, and last I heard had no background in psychology nor sociology.
That's False Authority at best, a Logical Flaw.
People like Rocky voted for Bush now deny it.
Few Bush voters now wish to discuss it, either
I have yet to meet one American that voted for Bush. Go figure.
Sure they did, and they LOVED him with every fibre of their being. Motherfuckers.
What's your point, exactly? A few questions you don't want to touch and all of a sudden we've all been stricken with a case of BDS?
Even if you did make a rational argument, you are unable to use critical thinking skills to discuss the merits of of opinions of those who disagree, and analyze our conclusions.
You simply give knee jerk responses to torture that are as juvenile as they are vapid. You cannot excuse it, no matter how many claims you make, the basis of these somehow justifying something that:
1) Does not work. History bears this out
2) Build the resolve of ones enemy
3) Immediately abdicates whatever altruistic aims the aggressor had in the first place (if applicable)
Please pay attention to number three, and then remind yourself, when a war of aggression is built on deceit and lies, torture and crime are not far behind
Bush Derangement Syndrome????????????????????????
Is this some kinda joke? The man fucked the USA over, but good. Now it's a fetid pile of dung. You'd be deranged not to hate bu$h.
Spilled their guts about what? Iraq and Al Qaeda ties? Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11? Weapons of Mass destruction in Iraq? What did they spill their guts about that wasn't a lie?
We have only Dick Cheney's word that they got information out of them, but getting information that's good is not something he's said. This is also the SAME Dick Cheney that said "it's been pretty well confirmed" on how many things about Iraq that we now know to be false thanks to multiple investigations? 4... at least?
You can physically recover from being tortured. Mutilation is the more severe form of torture which you typically can't recover from physically. Waterboarding is, after all, a simpler form of saying "simulated drowning". The definition of torture, in case you don't know it (and by the RNC talking points you're using, I'm guessing you don't) is "the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty." Now how is simulated drowning not torture?
And the point of the torture was to manufacture false confessions/"intelligence" about a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and about information on Hussein's WMDs.
See Senate Intelligence Report on Iraq WMD's. Specifically pages 77-80 regarding al-Libi (you know, the guy who just was suicided in Libya).
Hello, Hello, Hello.....!
Hello...
I'm certainly not a McCain fan but I think most of his problem is that he sells his soul for the wrong things.
Kudos to him for giving a straight up answer and not waffling.
You put that exactly right.
He would have made a horrible president but on the issue of torture he is the source.
Under torture the North Vietnamese made him sign a document admitting that he was a war criminal.
Torture works? Sure, he's a war criminal.
yet again - for watching the teevee so that I need not do so.
Because I really Hate the idiot box.
The Teevee is "debating" torture...TORTURE for pete's sake!
That this needs to be debated, or even discussed is proof of how low the USA has sunk.
When I was a kid, the movies of the day showed the American GI Heroes liberating the captured Resistance Fighter from the evil, torturing hands of the Gestapo -
played by a pudgy little bald creep with a monocle and a sneer who,
apparently became Vice President of the USA...
shee-it; we shouldn't need to discuss this.
I am ashamed of my country.
"Because I really Hate the idiot box."
Sounds like one poster above has one duct taped to his face.
Eh, I watch public broadcasting, The Simpsons, My Name is Earl, and last night finished my video of Zorro's Fighting Legions.
First Blue Collar TV was cancelled, and now Earl, whatever am I going to do?
..merely to create doubt? They realize that a good majority of Americans pay no attention to fact, and that most of those watch their network. Their goal, and that of Limbaugh, Cheney and others outside the FOX anchors is to cast doubt, create confusion, not change anyones mind. All they must do is make the storyline an argument of competing explanations as to the necessity of "torturing" people to make YOU safe from terrorism.
I take some solace that a good many Americans are not buying it, and it reaffirms ones faith in mankind to see that
Greta, you're a national embarassment. You ask perpetrators to decide whether they'll use euphemisms or accurate terms in discussions of their own actions? And you let yourself be flummoxed for 5 years over it? That's some journalistic standard!
Why? Because as long as the "discussion" is about bullshit like 'is it really torture' and 'how dare you insult a statesman like Darth Cheyney', the bad guys are winning. Deadeye Dick is begging for his chance to defend his eight years of murder, conspiracy, and treason. Indict the monster and let him present his defense. If he can beat a conviction, I'll kiss his ass.
As long as they frame the discussion they have the upper hand, thank you moondancer. Is this so hard to understand? When jerk offs come around lamely attempting to go right back to reframing the discussion as if everyone is as easily manipulable as they are...sorry.
Then when discussing whether "waterboard torture" is torture, you can point out that or course it's torture. Says so right in the name! Pretty short argument, huh?
Oh, also bring rope and a pitcher of water. Offer to demonstrate waterboard torture on any right wing torture denier in the room. If they're stupid enough to try it, make them confess that they are a witch.
Then...BURN THE WITCH!
It makes me want to scream every time I hear one of these morons babbling on about how Pelosi needs to provide documentation proving her allegations. They all know full well that she would be breaking the law by doing so, whether or not it is true that she was not allowed to take any notes during the briefings. Does anyone notice that Bob Graham, Peter Hoekstra and John Boehner (all of who have made similar claims) are not being brought up at all during these discussions?
I think the context of this interview was particularly important - it was right after Obama and Cheney had given their National Security speeches this past Thursday.
And on every issue McCain supported Obama and repudiated Cheney.
And the Fox News viewers watched it!
If it changed only one mind it was worth it.
If being accused of lying (which IS their job) hurts their morale that much, let's hope they never get waterboarded.
Sustern, the doe-eyed innocent who believes Cheney. I suppose it's useful for a Fox News audience to hear all this, but Sustern would know the answers to all of her questions if she bothered to research her subject at all - all she'd need to do is read the major articles. McCain is actually quite good here - except on Pelosi, where he plays some partisan BS. At one point, it seems that Sustern was less of a wingnut. At least she supports some disclosure - although it's not clear how much.
this is actually a pretty good interview by sen. mccain. thanks for providing it since i have given up watching any fixx news to cross reference. personally, i believe the republicans especially the inactive lawmakers/talking heads are making the pelosi cia statements a sideshow. i don't think the house/senate
really want to push pelosi too far. even if they could present memos stating pelosi was briefed i'm not sure i would believe it. the (r) media will try to say pelosi is hiding something if nothing comes of this. this is a distraction from the real culprits.
... says it's torture, it's indeed such. He lasted only six seconds.
Greta is a botoxed whore. She wants to have Moosegirl's next baby. She's disgusting.
"The CIA doesn't lie to world leaders, they assassinate them"
Well, to be fair - sometimes the world leaders are told "We are your friends" before they are suicided. Saddam especially liked that line...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTldYbqlJc8
who's stalking Sarah Palin?
Not boosh sr.
He hates broccoli.
Memo to Greta: Show the Mancow waterboarding video. I dare you.
How long before the reich wing turn on Mancow for calling it torture. The countdown begins...
MY guess is he'll start re advocating it's use as soon as he clears all the water out of his sinuses.
"There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder," he continued.
"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."
Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.
A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney , told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba , detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq .
"While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq ," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."
...after Greta waterboarded him to get him to admit that waterboarding is not torture.
He waffled on the issue during the campaign. He kissed the right religious right, he hired the same people that slimed him in the the 2000 primary, so the fact that he tried to fudged the torture issue during didn't surprise me. Now, it's torture, again.
Is there a wrong religious right?
Here's a song for that guy who died from injuries sustained by being manacled to the ceiling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TX9xpfwDA0
Greta determine for herself firsthand whether or not waterboarding is torture?
CONVINCING THE DUMBED-DOWN THAT WATERBOARDING IS ILLEGAL IS LIKE TRYING TO TEACH A LATTER DAY REPUBLICAN ABOUT EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY OR ECOLOGY
WATERBOARDING IS ILLEGAL
http://lawreview.wustl.edu/slip-opinions/wate...
1. Torture Act
2. War Crimes Act
3. Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Persons Under Custody or Control of the United States Government
4. Additional Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
"The United States has enacted statutes prohibiting torture and cruel or inhuman treatment. It is these statutes which make waterboarding illegal. The four principal statutes which Congress has adopted to implement the provisions of the foregoing treaties are the Torture Act, the War Crimes Act,and the laws entitled "Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Persons Under Custody or Control of the United States Government" and "Additional Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment." The first two statutes are criminal laws while the latter two statutes extend civil rights to any person in the custody of the United States anywhere in the world."
I am a staunch Obama supporter. However, President Obama has said he doesn’t support "charging CIA agents and interrogators who took part in waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics, acting on advice from superiors that such practices were legal."
It is essential that ALL the people who formulated, authorized and promulgated the orders to conduct torture be held accountable for their crimes. However, HOW can that be accomplished if the CIA agents and interrogators who took part in waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics lack maximum incentive/motivation to FULLY cooperate and provide the WHOLE TRUTH? Couldn’t those who followed orders (the smaller fish Obama doesn’t want charged) selectively control and or significantly influence WHICH of the big fish DO and or DO NOT get prosecuted? When the smaller fish have no PERSONAL LEGAL STAKE in telling ALL, aren’t they vulnerable to the internal and external political and career pressures that could significantly influence who they DO and or DO NOT incriminate? Does anyone believe that there is NO POLITICS within the CIA?
President Obama is WRONG to promote the SELECTIVE enforcement of our laws. WHY would Obama want to ignore the precedents set at the Nuremberg trials? How can a Constitutional Law professor advocate ignoring the reasons that America was established as a nation of laws instead of a nation of men? We should not have to trust in anyone. We should only trust in the rule of law.
as her plastic surgeon clearly practiced it on her, considering the horrific results those who watch her see everyday. she has a car accident for a face, and Joan Rivers looks like Cindy Crawford compared with Greta. she has a strange mouth twist that's akin to Cheney's permanent sneer/snarl. i think it even affected her speech mannerisms.
I'm Gtetta,
My TMJ will never heal...
I think after the Bush administration betrayed and blew the cover of an undercover operative for political revenge, I imagine the CIA care very much what politicians are saying.
As far as this is concerned, I don't think the CIA are going to be losing any sleep over it.
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