Limbaugh fill-in Davis asks "can we maybe use 9-11 ... to refocus on what was done to us"
September 01, 2009 2:25 pm ET
From the September 1st edition of Premiere Radio Networks' Rush Limbaugh:
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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
Yep, that's always a good idea. Sometimes you find that, after time, the emotion has faded away and you're responding to circumstances using only reasoned analysis. At times like that, a good ol' jolt of emotion is necessary to get you back on the right track, eh?
Thanks to herr dubyah and dick cheney dropping the ball.
More proof that torture doesn't work:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/09/01/iraq.deathpenalty.woman/index.html
Oh wait, he's not real like your imaginary scenarios.
Yup.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/09/01/iraq.deathpenalty.woman/index.html
Samar Saed Abdullah's entire body trembles as she speaks about her impending execution. She thinks of the gallows room, the noose around her neck and that moment when she will take her final breath.
[...]
During the interview, the wardens also seemed to make motions to try to stop CNN from broaching the subject of her allegation that she had only confessed under torture.
[...]
Her parents sold everything to pay for her defense. They swear she's innocent. She says she was tortured by the police into confessing that she went to her uncle's house with the intent to steal.
(Which sets me wondering about the 6K year old Earth)
(BTW... got another 'poll' to post)
My answer to you is No. No, I would not stoop to any means necessary, even to save my family. Not as President, or other duly elected representative. Is this a hard choice? Of course. That is what separates people with principles from people without: when things really matter, when the stakes are highest, the people with principles stick to those principles.
And when President Bush ignored his daily intelligence brief, telling the agent "Okay, you've covered your backside" and did nothing at all to prevent 9-11, what does that make him, exactly?
And the reason that only totalitarian folk use torture? It is not even just their humanity. You can get you victim to admit to being his own Grandmother, or any false facts you want, but you cannot get actual facts. Totalitarians don't care about actual facts.
Sorrowfully the greatest expert on AlQueda who could have lead a workable counterattack or even have stopped the whole thing was in those Towers, after being fired by the Gang Of Pirates that still dance on the graves of those lost and the thousands dying still from their negligence.
Yes. It's a well established fact that the herr dubyah administration was briefed that such an attack was being planned.
The confidential President's Daily Brief (PDB) for August 6, 2001 contained a two-page section entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US," and refers to possible hijacking attempts by Osama bin Laden disciples and the existence of about 70 FBI investigations into alleged al-Qaeda cells operating within the United States.
Wasn't he an "insider"?
Fihser Girl is part of the Marines. How would you feel, Fisher Girl, if you or one of your buddies was captured in Iraq, and the Iraqis said "Well, let's look at the pictures of Abu Grahib before we deal with this prisoner. After we look at what the Americans have done to us, then tell me we shouldn't torture this US Marine?" (Likewise, and Iraqi could justify torture on the grounds that they didn't want the invasion, and over 100,000 thousand Iraqis have died.)
The ban against torture is to protect people like YOU. You of all people should understand why the Geneva Conventions ban them.
My quote ("The implication of the story...") is obviously from another story, but I think my post is clear, anyway. Also, the last sentence should read "You of all people should understand why the Geneva Conventions ban it."
Saddam Hussein had a special torture room. Human rights groups regularly report that torture occurs in Iraq.
>>oh do you know how many times TERRORIST where waterboarded (2 times)
What are you talking about? Two suspects were waterboarded, but one was waterboarded repeatedly. Of course, that doesn't even matter. One time is too many.
>>do you know every tactic they used that was considered torture, ummmmmm, no you don't.
That makes no sense. If more torture techniques were used, that only strengthens my argument.
>>And to protect people like you (marines), you say, no your wrong its too protect us against people like you,
And somehow I am supposed to take you seriously after you make a post like that? And I love your use of Orwellian logic: if we don't torture people, then our freedoms are threated! That is a logical fallacy of ends justifying means. By that logic, I could say that any time you are against any foreign policy that I think will work, you are undermining my freedom.
My point still stands, since in all your ranting you didn't address it. If you justify torture here, then the Iraqis (or any other country) can justify torture against our soldiers. You haven't addressed that point, the main and only point I made.
Further, if you believe in torturing terrorist suspects to save human lives, than you must also be for torturing people like Timothy McVeigh for gang leaders, since by the same logic torturing them could lead to arrests that would save peoples' lives.
So given that logic, then we should also torture people like
Timothy McVeigh, gang leaders, or Mob bosses? All of them also have knowledge that would lead to the arrest of other members and prevent future deaths. Torture is against the law and forbidden in the constitution for good reason.
In the words of Master Yoda, "If you honor what they fight for? Yes."
We fight for freedom; for human rights. We fight to defend our way of life. We fight to defend our principles. These are NOT things that Al Quaeda can take away or destroy. Only our government can, and only if we let them. And that only happens when we are all so full of fear, that we forget what it is we REALLY need to defend. Dick Cheney did more to destroy our freedom, and the American principles of liberty and the Constitution than Al-Quaeda ever could. Our CONUTRY and it's VALUES must outlive us. They must endure long after we are all gone. They are bigger and more importnant that us. No terrorist can destroy them - only we can. If you would give everything that makes you country worth fighting for in the first place, just to save your own skin, then I say, 'YOU ARE A COWARD and a TRAITOR.' I will not accept that we must save ourselves at the cost of what makes us worth saving.
For my part? If I die becasue I did not want to let my government torture, because I wanted this country to remain the "good guys" in this fight, then I'll have died defendeing freedeom every bit as much as every soldier in Iraq or Afganistan; arguable more so.
Idiot.
Yes, let's remember 9/11. Let's remember the utter incompetence of Rice and Cheney and Bush and Rumsfeld that allowed it to happen. Let's remeber that the republicans used it to justify the biggest expansion of the federal gov't in our nations history. Let's rememebr that they used it as an excuse to ride rough-shod over the constitution, taking away our freedom and liberty. Let's remember how it was used as an excuse to start an illegal and uneccessary war, against a country that had nothing to do with it, and the incompetence of Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld as they planned and executed it. Let's remember WHO politicized it, and WHO used it to brand their opponents traitors, even as it was only those "traitors" who did anything to defend the part of america that makes it WORTH defending.
Yes, by all means, let's never forget 9/11.
Who's we? I haven't forgotten. Anyone else here forgotten?
What IS your point?
We had no idea any attack was planned and the only one in custody was Zacarias Moussaoui. We had no idea what he was up to. Should we have tortured every foreign national we had in custody at the time?
Don't get me wrong, I live in New Jersey. 37 people from my town died. Several friends who worked in the WTC got out that day thank God. My wife commutes to Manhattan every day.
On an emotional level, we'd all want to torture someone if we knew it would save 3,000 lives, but on a rational level, we know that the odds of anyone knowing something that would enable us to stop an impending disaster is close to zero.
The people who carry out these attacks are usually not aware of the entire plan. It's like capturing a typical grunt and expecting him or her to know anything about planning or strategy. I'm assuming that USMC in your screen name means you've got at least some knowledge of what it's like to be a soldier.
We live in a dangerous world but torturing anyone we imagine can harm us makes us no better than our enemies.
I don't think anyone here has forgotten about the victims of 9/11. On another board, you asked if any of us were in NYC on that day. Well, I was, and I remember how terrifying it sometimes was to live in the city afterwards. I totally understand the temptation to want those in charge to do anything to keep you safe - to keep your heart from skipping a beat every time you heard a plane engine, or even just saw someone on the street looking up. But, although I understand it, I do not think we should give in to our fear and we should not sacrifice morals and principles to keep us safe.
However...
You can construct a scenario to justify almost anything. Your question relies on a)100% certainty that the person in captivity is involved in the plot, b)100% certainty that torture would get the information needed, and c)a deep and vested personal interest in the outcome. This is why the torture on "24" is even slightly palatable, because you know that it's happening to a "bad guy". Generally, real life doesn't usually have those levels of certainty. And if there ever was such a situation, then that person would have to commit the act of torture knowing that it's illegal, and hope that there are no legal consequences. Even under the most charitable conditions and interpretations, we're still talking about the exception, which has no bearing on whether the rule should exist or not.
I'm a fairly peaceful and collected person by nature, but we're all human. It's all well and good to say "I have principles and I would never...", but I don't think that takes emotional factors into consideration. If I was in a scenario where someone killed my father (and I saw this), and then the guy gets acquitted for it (while being obnoxiously unrepentant afterward), and then I have some magical opportunity to take revenge without getting caught, then maybe I could be noble and forgive him and walk away. It's more likely I'd make him eat his own intestines. But that is all fictional. The extreme and finely-honed circumstances involved have absolutely no bearing on the larger questions of whether murder is moral or not, or whether it should be illegal or not.
The bottom line is that the answer to your question doesn't prove a damn thing, no matter what it is.
Would burning to death, or jumping to your death, be considered torture? Sure. So is waterboarding. One thing they have in common is that they both happen to innocent people, and that they are perpetrated on innocent people by those in power. Another thing these two events have in common is that they were both preventable.
I will honor the dead, but I think the day to remember is 9-12. The day we began to pick up the pieces. The day we came together, unified, as a nation, reminded for the moment that there were more important things than political party or ideology or even profits. That is the feeling that I wish to remember, and to carry forward for future generations.
If you torture people, you become a terrorist. In the war on terror that Mr. Davis speaks so passionately about, this puts you on the wrong side, doesn't it?
There are rules; you can't, as a US Marine, say that you were taught to save anyone's life "by ANY means necessary.
That's baloney. As I have pointed out, the Geneva conventions do not say that non-uniformed people can not be tortured. As for your POW training, if you were waterboarded hundreds of times, you would say whatever your torturerers wanted to hear. The Nobel prize winning Solzinistin, who underwent the torture in the Soviet Union and knew it thoroughly, relates an anecdote. Some of the Soviets read about how Germans withstood torture of the Nazis. The Soviets were not impressed, merely saying that the Germans didn't do it right. They knew firsthand that every human will break down.
Interestingly, the worst form of torture was sleep deprivations. Solzinistin writes how every other torture is unneeded. No human can stand going sleepless for long periods of time.
I have gone through SERE training as well. Does that mean I have the right to torture others?
And just because Dubya made up a new term "unlawful combatant" does not mean that the Conventions do not pertain to captured terroists. Every person captured either falls under Article Four (POW) or Article Five (civilian).
Same for the guy I knew in Delta.
Police do not torture suspects. Also, I don't know what kind of trickery you mean. All suspects have the right to a lawyer and have the right against self incrimination. The most police can do is try to skirt these inconveniences for them, for example, trying to get a suspect to give up information before they arrest him.
But I fully agree with NG Officer. It is untrue you are supposed to save someone's life "by ANY means necsessary."
Actually, obeying the rule of law is job one to a Marine. You never served, you liar.
Protecting it does not mean ignoring laws, of course, so fishergirl is not being true if she advocates breaking the law to get results...
Snoop, I served right along side you jar heads. ;) I was in a squadron in the USN from 1990 to 1994. I'm not naive to the Corps. I roomed with you, trained with you, and worked with you. I still don't believe she served. Marines are some of the most disciplined warriors in the world and she's from that. She's a fraud and a hack.
Snoop, I served right along side you jar heads. ;) I was in a squadron in the USN from 1990 to 1994. I'm not naive to the Corps. I roomed with you, trained with you, and worked with you. I still don't believe she served. Marines are some of the most disciplined warriors in the world and she's from that. She's a fraud and a hack.
Snoop, I served right along side you jar heads. ;) I was in a squadron in the USN from 1990 to 1994. I'm not naive to the Corps. I roomed with you, trained with you, and worked with you. I still don't believe she served. Marines are some of the most disciplined warriors in the world and she's from that. She's a fraud and a hack.
Snoop, I served right along side you jar heads. ;) I was in a squadron in the USN from 1990 to 1994. I'm not naive to the Corps. I roomed with you, trained with you, and worked with you. I still don't believe she served. Marines are some of the most disciplined warriors in the world and she's from that. She's a fraud and a hack.
Dunno -- why don't you jump out of a 100-story building, fishygirl, and get back to us . . .
6,000 people die each and every calendar day - 2.5 million people a year.
Health Care reform and other efforts can reduce these numbers.
Oh, c'mon! Health care is for pansies and so uncool. Going to war makes me feel so much better.
TRANSLATION: can we use 9-11 to ramp up the fear of immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims, and anybody who isn't white? It worked so well around election time -- or, used to, anyway . . .
Like trying to frighten the American people into believing they were the only ones who could protect us, when it was their indifference that allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur in the first place.
Like trying to convince us that a country that didn't attack us needed to be invaded so we could take their oil and use it to pay for the invasions we shouldn't have been doing in the first place.
Like lying about weapons that didn't exist to scare us into accepting that invasion (Remember the fool Rumsfeld saying "We know exactly where the WMD are. They're in Tikrit, and slightly north, east, west, and south of there.")
And it went on, and on, and on...
However, I do not let that affect my daily routine on September 11th. I know that our efforts in Afghanistan were to flush out the terrorists and not to belittle Muslims in general. I know that the job can be done the right way, but I also believe that torturing those who we believe orchestrated the attack was not the right thing to do.
We don't need a modern version of Hammurabi's Code.