This scene is closer to the truth then some would like to admit. It's easy now to say it was "torture", and call into question the methods used. We all know that if we ever get hit again on a major scale the same politicians will be complaining that the CIA blew it!

A Few Good Men
Colonel Jessup:

Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!

It's worth noting that in the movie Col. Jessup was arrested.

Thought for you guys. Your at the mourge to identify a family member with body parts missing as the building they were in was blown up by a pscyko who didn't like that your family reads the bible. What would you do if you could to makem that not happen. we want and trust those people to keep us safe,do the hard stuff and at times get their hands bloody for our safety. Remeber your freedom has a price. Sounds to me like people that have never stepped up or have forget that fact.

First, your band width here is too brief to clearly understand. I don't know if you mean the sheep who responded to the current polls, or the sheep at the time of 9/11.

Second, your point, whatever it is, is irrelevant. Regardless of which sheep to which you are referring. And it doesn't matter whether they thought Saddam was involved or not. Or whether they cherished somewhere deep in their patriotic soul that old American motto "Don't tread on me." Or if they thought that Bush was responsible for 9/11. Or if they believed that politicians are all a pack of cowardly liars, and that it was the sheepdogs in the CIA who abided by a code of honor, duty bound, to protect them at all costs when the wolf was on the attack. I don't know what exactly, or by what number , they thought, other than the results of the poll. The point of linking the article is simply that most Americans are on the side of what the CIA did. And, surprise, surprise, they are more disturbed by what the sheep in the Senate investigation did than what the CIA did.

Personally, I am a sheep who is glad that it backfired on them. I think that a lot of the crap that comes out of this administration and its henchfolk is half policy and half wag-the-dog in order to take the heat off of a current "scandal." Notice how the Gruber lying and corruption involved in passing the ACA is completely forgotten now? Not just a musty week or two "old news,"--just gone. And, I'm sure, Spence, that is just fine with you. It's "smart."

I don't think our sheepdogs should have to be secretive about what they do. As I've said before, as a nation we should be open about what we will do if we are attacked. No matter how harsh, swift, or devastating, we should forthrightly let it be known exactly what we will do in response. And we shouldn't hedge. We should have already established a reputation that we carry a "terrible swift sword" to use against those who threaten us, as well as a generous helping hand to those who support us and hold our founding values.

We are increasingly being tested now, to see how far we will go to protect our turf or support our allies--as in the Ukraine, and in North Korea's hacking as well as its outrageous threat to our free speech by its threat against Sony. We shouldn't have to be backed into corners where we appear weak and vulnerable. If we had that strong face to the world, militarily as well as economically, and had established it to the point that an enemy would, with certainty and swiftness, receive whatever destruction it wished to impose on us, I think we would have less trouble with the rest of the world, and wouldn't have to pretend about having some "high ground."

I think honesty is one of the highest grounds. When the "high ground" forces you to deception, to be clandestine, to lie, in politics and war, then the "high ground" itself is a ruse, and an excuse to bludgeon your political opposition with the phony lie that you are pure and they are not.

Hope this hasn't been too long for you.

A radical Islamist.

BOOM!





Originally Posted by spence

Or more importantly, can or does a sheepdog discern between a wolf that will feed versus a wolf that's satisfied?


sorry....this is a new level of dumb:fishslap:

Put the cap back on.

Originally Posted by spence

Or more importantly, can or does a sheepdog discern between a wolf that will feed versus a wolf that's satisfied?


your New Year's resolution should be to try to make sense once in a while...since you like this wolf analogy...

a) the wolf will always become hungry again(never satisfied)
b) the wolf becomes more emboldened each time if feeds successfully
c) other wolves will follow emboldened by the success of the first wolf
d) the wolf doesn't care whether the sheepdog views it as ready to feed or satisfied, it's going to feed at the next best opportunity
e) navel gazing sheepdogs and shepherds pondering how to coexist with the wolves and whether or not they are ready to feed or feeling satified at that moment will surely lose their flock

I think we could have tortured more people to reap more information. We should have.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

clearly the fault lies with the Shepard, sheepdog and the sheep... who's actions have caused the wolves to be hungry....and therefore must learn to either coexist with the wolves or determine how to best avoid inflaming the hunger of the wolves to minimize their desire to feed.....something like that:confused:

funny....I've never heard of a wolf going easy on a sheep...maybe in an Aesops's Fable....I see the story from Pakistan and what has gone on in Iraq recently and other places and realize we cannot deal "humanely" with the inhumane...any of those folks would have chosen waterboarding I think, over what they and their children met......it's incredible that this is even a discussion....we seemed determined to tie the paws of the sheepdog behind it's back and I guess bark louder whenever it determines/divines the wolf might be hungry trusting that the wolves will respond in kind by what?...not eating as many sheep? good grief...

100% knew that he was atop the list of most prolific sponsors of terrorism in the world for many years running...I wonder how many sheep died as a result..he'd built a pretty solid case against himself that went way beyond 9/11.....don't think we miss him very much

True, but not for interrogating a terrorist with information on an imminent attack on the U.S.

I listened to Mc Cain recently...his contention is that these techniques in general don't work because they result in the subject telling the interrogators what he thinks they want to hear in order to make them stop...to that I would say ...YES....what they want to hear may in fact be what they want to know...once they are told what they want to hear or know, they can then go about determining how truthful the information is...which is likely much more information than would have been gotten otherwise....and ultimately...it's been shown that we treat the wolves much better than they treat the sheep in nearly every case

Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulS View Post
spence - pls, pls. don't respond to that. Enough band width has been wasted.

Spence reply:
"I can't, it takes too long just to read it let alone formulate a response"


Let me make it easy for you. I'll break it down into little parts. Try answering this part, if you can:

Originally Posted by spence View Post
"(1) In 2002 Bush's legal council wrote a letter stating why they believed EIT's under a certain definition wouldn't be considered torture. This was the justification I believe for all further orders. This doesn't make the actions legal."

Detbuch response:
"Well, it does, or it doesn't. It depends on which higher authority, if there is one, or higher law the actions are in accord or disagreement with. For instance, when Obama creates executive orders which are not in accord with or in opposition to the higher constitutional law, they would not be legal. But if the Constitution is not considered a higher authority or law than that which Obama and the progressive movement he belongs to consider to be an overriding concept (or law) of 'social justice,' then his executive orders, and all the past 100 years of progressively overriding constitutional law in order to achieve their notion of social justice, are considered, by them, to be legal."

Is that too long for you to formulate a response? If not, give it a go.

Spence, here's another little part made easy for you:

Originally quoted by Spence re Bush's EIT:
"It simply gives a reasoning for the decision to not follow the Geneva Convention and a line of defense if the actions were prosecuted under US or International law.

Detbuch response:
"That begs the question of why it would be necessary to adhere to the Geneva Convention, or International law, or any other law, if the supreme law of the land, the Constitution, is not necessarily followed. If administrations can make ad hoc decisions which violate the highest law in your own country, why would it be necessary for administrations to follow any other supposed higher laws, including U.N. laws (especially when those laws can supersede your own laws and deprive you of sovereignty over yourself)?"

Is this also too long for you to formulate a response: If not, give it a go.

Spence: yet another little piece that you may be able to handle:

Original quote by Spence"
"(2) That doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't think there's any real evidence that torture does work and most experts seem to believe there are better methods. If it's not likely to work and likely illegal why would you do it?"

Detbuch reply"
"It's cute how you apply the test of 'real evidence' to determine if torture works, but your test for favoring that it doesn't is the 'seem to believe' of 'most experts.' "

"And from there you go to the proposition that 'it's not likely to work.' Well, even granting your allowances which don't require real evidence, just 'expert' opinion, and even though other, if not 'most' experts 'seem to believe' that it does work (was there actually a tally of experts on both sides to determine who was the most, and by how much?)--'not likely to work' does not mean that it won't. And in desperate circumstances, why wouldn't you do it?"

This is a bit longer. But I think you can handle it. Give it a go.

Spence: and yet another smaller portion, but maybe too long for you:

Original quote by Spence:
"(2) That doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't think there's any real evidence that torture does work and most experts seem to believe there are better methods. If it's not likely to work and likely illegal why would you do it?"

Response by Detbuch:
"As for that 'illegal' bit, again, the hypocrisy, and worse, of getting what you want politically by trashing your own laws, then demanding that even in desperate times your opposition must not only follow some law based on foreign notions and cooperation, those very laws which not only deprive you of sovereignty, but evolved from some original feasible and sensible notion to the present height of silliness, is all not only astounding but is self-destructive. There have been several U.N. conventions since the original laws on torture of 'legally' combatant prisoners were agreed to. The original notion that all parties WHO SIGNED ON TO THE AGREEMENT would be deterred from torturing each other's prisoners, otherwise, quid pro quo, if you torture mine I'll torture yours. That evolved over time and conventions (due to what were perceived to be 'socially Just' humanitarian values) to the prohibition of 'torture' by a signatory party, even if the other party did not sign on or even if it did torture.

The 'terrorists' that we 'tortured' were not 'legal' uniformed combatants of a sovereign nation which had signed on to the U.N. agreement on torture. And they have, and continue so, tortured and brutally execute, not only uniformed military, but non-combatant civilians. Yet whom, by U. N. convention, we were not allowed to 'torture.' Which, I think, would 'seem to be believed' by 'most' Americans to be stupid."

I realize the length of this may stretch you ability to a breaking point. But if you can handle it, give it a go.

Spence, the final portion broken down made easy for you to handle:

Original quote by Spence:
"3) I've never heard people say we're no better but it certainly does undermine our high-ground and our identity."

Reply by Detbuch:
"Our high ground in accord with rule of law has been undermined by progressive ad hoc rule of whim in opposition to the law of our land for a long time. Leftist progressives have no moral ground to stand on in that respect. And with that lawless transformation, our 'identity' is no longer recognizable. In every respect, we not only contradict ourselves, but we look like fools, not worthy of respect, to the rest of the world, when we appear to have a fungible identity which changes from one day to the next. And when we can one day lie and rail about and accuse some obscure anti-Islamic video being the cause of bloody riots and death of our own consulate members, then mea culpa expose what we had actually done to Islamists even though even many more of our people would be at risk because of it--when we can do that about face, from falsely condemning a video, to praising a supposedly 'high ground' truth which would cause the mayhem and bloodshed that we accused the video of fomenting, the height of the ground is leveled to the pit of hypocrisy . . . and stupidity."

Maybe too much. But give it a go . . . if you can.

HAHA! And I was about to start working on the first leg.

I have to make the kids dinner and iron my pajamas but will try and pen something later.

oh great...... torture that most experts seem to believe is worse than waterboarding and undoubtedly less likely to providing meaningful information.........:lasso:

I was referring to the sheep at the time of 9/11, the point being a lot of people simply believe what they're told.

Happened upon this and think they have a good point.

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/...editorial.html

The Gruber thing passed because beyond arrogant remarks there wasn't anything to it. He even went before Congress and Issa couldn't lay a finger on him.

A limiting factor here is our position as global cop which creates complexities others don't bear. Additionally the technical, economic and social considerations of a more globalized world provide a dynamic for which we have yet to find a balance.

Simply carrying a big stick doesn't cut it any more. Jeb is going to have to deal with this just like Obama has.

And that's exactly why the torture issue is so important.

Did you see Cheney on Meet the Press last week? What a joke. He's still lying about it.

I made extra coffee.

Says you. Sorry for this bandwith. If it's too long, just disregard.

[QUOTE=detbuch;1059756]Sorry for this bandwith. If it's too long, just disregard.[/QUOTE}]

Don't worry ,the way things are going there will be a Government Read and Answer Dept for Libs that are too lazy to read for themselves.

Jim, as I said before the torture memo didn't make the actions magically legal, it offered a counterpoint to existing laws if the actions were challenged in court.

Essentially they had a few lawyers come up with something, anything they could cite to get their way. The memo was widely panned when it was released and even rescinded 2 years after its writing.

Did you see Cheney a week ago? He claims we stopped short of torture, not because we didn't torture, but because a rescinded memo defined EITs as less than torture.

That just doesn't pass a basic smell test.

Pelosi has been pretty consistent in her position and the Senate report does appear to go into great detail on how Congress was misled on the extent of the actions or the success of the program.

What's interesting is that even with what Congress was briefed on there's not a lot they can do to challenge the secret briefings. They can't take notes, can't seek legal council etc...it's really just information.

I believe those who say there are more effective ways to get information that isn't torture. If we say we're not going to torture then we shouldn't.

Take the EIT's under Bush as a good case study. We did it and appeared to have done it quite a bit without significant results. Hell 25% of those subjected to EIT's weren't even terrorists and were released aside from the one that died.

We did give our enemies Abu Grahaib and a lot of recruitment propaganda though. I guess it didn't produce nothing.

A bit ago I read an interesting piece by a former CIA analyst Ray McGovern that a big motivator for the EIT program wasn't necessarily to get true information, it was to get anything that would help justify the Iraq war.

This led to bad information (i.e. I'll tell you what you want to hear) that the Administration eagerly lapped up even though it was found to be false.

The Abu Grahaib photos were not torture techniques used by interrogators, nor a result of interrogation techniques. They were propaganda used by opponents to vilify and "tell us" what we were doing in Gitmo and elsewhere.

And the hypocrisy of referring to Abu Grahaib as recruitment propaganda, but not labeling the partisan Senate exposure of CIA investigative tactics as the same is despicable. Even so, after the fiasco of depicting an obscure video as the reason for Islamic hyper-violence.

As for the tortured definitions of torture that were created in order to interrogate in accordance with rather stupid, self destructive, U.N. conventions, what this old 2005 article "tells us" might shed some light, as well as dispelling many of the lies about our interrogation of captives:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_terrorists.html

I stick to my own opinion, though, of not agreeing to some stupid convention which hamstrings us against barbarians. Civilized "high ground" ethics are admirable amongst civilized people. But civilization cannot stand strapped by the high ground when its enemy intractably wishes to destroy it. Especially if that enemy has a different set of high grounds in which it is ultimately devoted. And it wishes to destroy your civilization and replace it with its own.

Regardless of what anybody tells me.