Limbaugh defends harsh interrogation tactics, including threats against children: "I think they're pretty clever techniques"
From the August 25 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: From the UK Telegraph: "CIA interrogator threatened to kill children of September 11th mastermind. A CIA interrogator threatened to kill the children of Khalid Shaikh Mohamed if Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. again." And this is a problem?
Would somebody explain to me what the problem here is? The guy has just killed 3,000 Americans. He is swearing and has sworn his life to killing as many Americans as possible. We say, "You do it again, you don't tell us what's coming, next we'll kill some of your kids."
What's the problem here? Don't tell me that violates some tenet of torture according to the Geneva Conventions.
Previously:
AP: CIA Interrogators Threatened To Kill Detainee's Children: Report
Rose reacts to explosion of "one disposable Palestinian child": "They blow up so fast, don't they?"
The other right-wing media mogul you should worry about
Palin's book and Obama's bow: a media week to forget
Media Matters: The Palin chronicles
But I'll take your bait- 'candy' in the form of protection or non-prosecution may bring down bigger fish... I know because I heard Jack Bauer say it before he shot the guy- and Jack works for ALL of us...
Keep up the good fight against those voice in your head.
Keep up the good work!
Yours loyally,
Mr. Murdoch
Torture doesn't work... It produces bad information because people will say ANYTHING to get it to stop. Your weak strawman argument needs to be taken back to the Free Republic.
No, of course not. Why? Are you thinking of donating your sofa to Abu Ghraib? I wouldn't worry about it - I don't see how that would result in the deaths of thousands of Americans.
Are you planning the armed robbery of TempurPedic? In that case, I would have to advise against it.
Who says we can't find common ground?
Would the deaths of thousands of Americans be worth making the poor terrorist comfortable?
What you're asking here is this;
Deaths of 1,000s of Americans = comfortable terrorist ?
No. The death of thousands of Americans is a horrible thing, I wouldn't assign it any "worth" whatsoever, except for great negative worth.
The comfort of a terrorist is likewise not of any immediate value to me, although if I had my choice, I'd rather terrorists be very uncomfortable.
But your question, asking about relative worth, is basically asking this, when written more clearly;
Would I trade the deaths of thousands of Americans(meaning "save their lives") in exchange for making a terrorist comfortable ?
I can't imagine any real life scenario where this trade off makes sense, but I absolutely would not mind a terrorist being comfortable if it could save thousands of lives.
Do you agree with me, or would you sacrifice thousands of American lives just for the satisfaction of making a terrorist uncomfortable?
If that's the case, stop trying to prosecute (not you personally, but liberal democrats) the brave men and women at the CIA or president Bush for making the terrorists uncomfortable in order to obtain life-saving information.
"I can't imagine any real life scenario where this trade off makes sense, but I absolutely would not mind a terrorist being comfortable if it could save thousands of lives."
It makes perfect sense, and that was my point. If 9/11 could have prevented if we had waterboarded someone with that knowledge, would that be ok with you?
"Do you agree with me, or would you sacrifice thousands of American lives just for the satisfaction of making a terrorist uncomfortable?"
That doesn't make sense. I would the terrorist uncomfortable to SAVE lives, not sacrifice them.
Or how about the French torture commited during the Afghan war? There were many terrorist acts during that war. Are you ok with that torture?
Something tells me you are going to have trouble simultaneously condemnind these acts without and defending America's torture without resorting to the refrain of "its ok if America does it".
Cognitive dissonance in action.
Well now -- the only way that would happen is if you were fighting AGAINST them.
Is that what you intend to do??
Anyway . . . "if I were a muslim extremist" like, say, Ramzi Yousef, the planner of the '93 WTC attacks? Maybe we should ask him how effective torture was.
It oughta be easy -- seeing as he IS in prison. Can't say the same for the one who masterminded 9/11 . . .
Hm -- capturing a terrorist, putting them on trial in a court of law, and imprisoning them {where they remain today} constitutes a "weak response".
Welcome to Wingnut Crazyworld!
You're right, Gala -- I suppose a better response would've been for Clinton to invade a country that had nothing to do with the attacks looking for nonexistent WMDs . . .
Yeah, too bad -- instead, he armed and supported them in their struggle against the "evil empire" {aka Soviet Union.}
Oh wait -- that wasn't Clinton . . . that was Ronnie Raygun -- the man who didn't fear anyone . . .
And actually, there are six persons, not one, in jail for the '93 WTC attack. But, hey -- don't let facts get in the way of a good smear . . .
I belong to no political club and one of the main reasons is because of this sort of childish, peckish behavior. GROW UP!
Hm, "fear of an imminent attack," eh?
Well, I can tell you what I WOULDN'T do: I wouldn't go back to barbecuing and bresh 'clearin when warned of an imminent attack -- nor would I sit on my arse reading to schoolkids while said attack is taking place . . .
"What would YOU do" -- that was the wingnuts and GOP's favorite question when the Iraq War/economy went south . . . it's kinda like them sitting behind the wheel of a car they're about to drive off of a cliff, turning to you in the back seat, and asking what YOUR plan is to keep us from going over . . .
Why not GO TO THE ACTUAL SOURCE . . . and see what it says about threatening to kill children being a "clever technique" . . .
This information made ALL the news . . . well, I'm sure it didn't make Fox because it would go against their propaganda agenda.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1901491-2,00.html
I mean, if I were you, I'd check out a book like this one or this one by people who can actually attest to which interrogation methods produce the most reliable intelligence. Oddly enough, the successful interrogators who gathered the intelligence that lead to the capture of Saddam Hussein and to the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi just happen to argue that skillful psychological manipulation and leverage work better than beating the s*** out of someone, inducing immediate fear of death, or threatening to harm the people they love.
Got that right, snoop.
All "Allah Akbar" means in arabic is "God is Great" . . . by that logic, I should be nervous every time a catholic says a "Hail Mary" in public . . .
Of course not. Because, as we all know, any step back from abuse and inhumane treatment puts us on that slippery slope to complete inaction.
In fact, you bring up a good point re: no physical contact. Any amount of money wasted on treating vets with no wounds but who exhibit symptoms of PTSD. They're perfectly fine, with no physical ailments at all. Go out and get a job, you slackers.
And the end justifies the means, as long as draft-dodging blobs like Limbaugh can sit in a comfy studio and satisfy their sadistic fetishes vicariously through the torture of evildoers thousands of miles away.
I heard some of Hogg's radio show this morning, and he was citing some of those survey statistics, the astounding number of people who don't know if Obama is an American, and some other examples of the average American being horribly misinformed.
But, while those stats are cited here with amusement or embarrassment, he was reading them off as if the lies were validated by the number of people who believe them.
It's like these people take pride in being ignorant.
America has morals while terrorists have none. They are willing to kill ANYBODY. America only tortures people and their families and their kids to protect our right to live by OUR morals.
Are your religious convictions likewise on a sliding scale?
Who would Jesus put in a pile naked and photograph?
Would you rather be beheaded by America-hating Islamofascists evildoers on videotape, or suffer a socialistic government takeover of health care that included end-of-life counseling?
I'll bet we would see some different results. And, no, I won't explain what my point is .
I remember sitting at the computer one night, transcribing psalms to notepad, and the devil urged me to view some pictures of ladies without their clothes on. I felt really bad about doing it. But then I realized that even though I had looked at them, it was the women who posed for those pictures who sinned much worse than me, and provided the opportunity for me to sin. And I felt better about doing it.
Ted Bundy
. . . except, of course, when that same "free market" results in one of their radio screamers losing his advertising sponsorship -- then, its "libs trying to silence free speech" . . .
Look at it from this perspective: A strong defense is not necessarily ONLY a military with devastating destructive capabilities. Consider the non-violent methods you use to defend yourself against adversaries, and the methods you use to avoid creating adversaries in the first place, and apply them on a national scale.
Then do yourself a favor and go here:
http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/
and get some education. The 4gw discussed on this site is the war we're fighting in Afghanistan right now.
But those weren't among the choices, GalaHGL. Of course, you did the right thing by not answering my question, it was as ridiculous as your false choice of out torture ot their torture.
My multiple choice was silly. Even using loaded words like "socialism" and "government take-over", any sane person would take that over beheading.
That's why nobody who loves this country, and wants to hold ourselves to higher standards, will take seriously your defense of Rush by pointing out that the despicable behavior he finds "clever" is not quite as bad as what may be done by our enemies.
Sorry, my "t" and "r" keys were playing musical chairs.
Well I must admit -- its been some time {40 years} since I attended kindergarten; yet, I'm hard-pressed to recall what "entrance exam" the following constituted:
Well, that's funny -- 'cause it was the Bush misAdministration's
OWN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT that gave them the authority to carry out these methods.
Lemme guess -- next, you're gonna say Dubya wasn't responsible for what went on in his Justice Dept., right? LOL.
That's Limbaugh logic in action.