Reagan also had no fear extending government spending, so much so that adversaries could not keep up. No cries of wealth distribution there. I guess when its in everyone's "best interest" and the great sake of "national security" anything goes.

...Like smashing an inordinately hot stripper after you've promised honor and obey your wife.

Speaks to the slippery slope the above statement has stepped out upon.

Spence brings up some good points. He has used good analogies to further my understanding; the aforementioned above being one of them.

Good point. We should dig up some quotes from conservatives bragging about how Reagan "outspent" the commies :hihi:

-spence

Good morning warriors of the key board. Day 3.

:rotf2:

You seem to be assuming that nations are never in agreement. This is often not the case.

You're mixing issues here. There is an argument to be made for the Bush policy toward treatment of unlawful combatants, but that doesn't supersede existing US law prohibiting torture.

So there's no line in the sand? Perhaps we should have used donkeys to rape detainees because it would have been funny?

If we are to have standards of behavior established as law, they can't have exceptions after the fact. Bush could have gone to Congress to ask for torture laws to be revised, but he did not.

This is the attitude Bin Laden is banking on.

Frankly I believe we shouldn't let a terrorist define what be believe to be our prime principals. I seem to remember a thread a few months ago where we were taught that Conservatives were different than Liberals in that their "principals" were unshakable.

He's audience represents a large block of Americans, many of whom share his attitudes.

Tools, plenty of tools for legal interrogation which when performed by professionals is quite effective.

The Surge wouldn't have likely been successful had Sunni's not came to the realization that if they continued to fight US Troops that Shiites would gain complete control.

While I'm sure there have been gains in Iraq due to the use of hard power and influence, a good much of it has either been short lived or counter productive.

I'd also note that Iraq is nearly asking us to leave now.




I think you're forgetting "populist" power.

Not idealistic at all, just pragmatic. I'm all for hard power to be applied when appropriate, but we can't loose sight of the long-term strategy.

I think some are personally upset that hubris has tarnished our image which hurts our long-term objectives. This sounds like a reasonable "agenda."

The neocon "school" would argue that our existence is threatened if we are not the de facto leader of the world.

-spence

Spence we were never weak before
 

And no one ever found out about these interogations because at the end of the interogation they killed the interogee.

It does look like a lot of detainees got the crap kicked out of them so it wouldn't surprise me if there were quite a few.

-spence

Its funny how it, at the time of capture, would have been ok to shoot them in the head, but since we did not kill them, we can't use any interrogation techniques that may be "uncomfortable"?

I sure "Mr. Towlie-ban" is just happy we didn't kill him and happy we don't kill our prisoners. He knows someday, he will be released and be able to go home. Torture, even that like was done to John McCain seems far more humane than killing them on the battlefield.

I as a retired military man, I feel that one of the only reasons we take prisoners is, not to show mercy, but the chance to gain information from them. Limit the chance of gaining information, or make me read him Miranda rights to him, will greatly increase his chance of being shot instead of captured......

Way too much hassle to keep them alive, nowadays.

And McCain, who suffered it, is very anti-torture, no?

Lovely how we JUST found out that waterboarding helped in the last round of interrogation... :smash:

So says #^&#^&#^&#^& Cheney. Unfortunately the report isn't quite that conclusive.

-spence

The reports are classified. Well at least they were classified. Now anything and everything is subject to release. The Pelosi's of the world don't care one bit about our national security , to them it's just politics as usual.:fury:

A lot of this report was redacted.

The pro-torture crowd will say that because EIT's were used at any time on some key terrorists, that the harsh methods are justified, regardless of when information was obtained or how credible it was.

This is the clever word game that Cheney has been playing in interviews this week.

Quite the contrary though, I'd note that the inspector who compiled the report states clearly that they couldn't determine if EIT's specifically were responsible for gaining any information.

An interesting note in the report is that KSM told the Red Cross he made a lot of stuff up just to get them to stop using the harsher methods, and that he tried to only give information he believed we already knew.

The net is we will probably never know for sure.

-spence

While suddenly on the moral high ground investigation, can someone tell me

why there was no investigation into the bomb down Gaddafi's chimney,

which put him on ice for quite awhile, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan aspirin factory and

the recent asasination of one of al qaeda's top 5 leaders?

Makes a few dunkings, sleep deprivation and verbal threats child's play compared to the above.

I'm sure some might say there's room to argue the legality of such actions under US Law and International conventions. I'd note that Clinton has taken a ton of heat for his "illegal" use of force in the Balkans, primarily by the GOP.

...but that's not really the point.

There's a big difference between how you treat someone at arms length vs a person who's under your "control".

-spence

Ya mean there's a difference between killing with a knife or killing
with a rocket ?

Only difference is the guy who gets bombed never knows what hit him.
They're both dead. :)

If someone stands before you, and you know they mean you harm, you may shoot them.

But if that same person is in cuffs and rendered impotent, even though you know they still would like to do you harm...do you still kill them?

I think most would agree that wouldn't be moral. Certainly most if not all our laws are designed around such beliefs.

Blame the Jesus, he started all this "turn the other cheek" stuff :hihi:

-spence

Does that mean that if a terrorist is 2,000 miles away in a house making a
plan to do harm to innocent victims, you don't send a Tomahawk
to stop him?

Have there been any captured terrorists that have been killed by us in
handcuffs?

Depends.

The reporting certainly indicates this has occurred many times, but I'm not aware of any credible count.

But it's a slippery slope argument, where we had erected laws to keep us from sliding further than we wanted. These have clearly been passed.

-spence

They should threaten to make the terrorists read this thread a few time, they would give it all up.

:gh:

-spence

:rotflmao: :hihi: Oh man,Duke, THAT was funny. :D

Actually what would work best is sit them in a big circle and have Spence read Mother Goose Nursery rhymes (also known as Health care bill) to them... within a few hours we'd know all their secrets.....
:rotf2:

You must be an EXTRAORDINARILY randy man if "smashing" a stripper is as critical a necessity as protecting yourself against a clear and present danger to your existence.

I was wondering the same thing...cheating on your wife with a stripper is somehow analgous to harsh interrogations of terrorists to protect American lives ?....have to admit, they got me on this one ...and this furthered his understanding of the subject and something about a slippery slope again?....I don't know... the slippery slope is the continued minimalization of the danger...this claim that somehow our standing in the world is diminished by these interrogations is bogus, seems to me that any decent , hardworking individual around the world and particularly those that live directly under the threat that these finatics pose would understand perfectly who we are dealing with and would applaud our efforts to ferret these animals out and thwart their plans...the libs vociferously politicize this with feigned outrage and partial truths which provide fodder for the oppressive regimes that control their media and feed their populations lies and distortions and then organize anti- US marches, burn some American flags and the libs point and say...see...see...the world hates US.....as usual, the lib progressives find themselves on the same side of the fence as America's enemies and see no shame in that....as with the above analogy, Spence's logic is distorted and based on a jaundiced world view which is mostly fallacy and revisionist to fit a template...

like this:

"I'm sure some might say there's room to argue the legality of such actions under US Law and International conventions. I'd note that Clinton has taken a ton of heat for his "illegal" use of force in the Balkans, primarily by the GOP." you ARE kidding right?

and this:
I seem to remember a thread a few months ago where we were taught that Conservatives were different than Liberals in that their "principals" were unshakable. noone ever said this, the thread was a discussion about the difference between principles and values

this:
"The neocon "school" would argue that our existence is threatened if we are not the de facto leader of the world. "huh????? make up your mind..is it "neocon school" or neocon "school"?

"Not at all, we all know the Soviet military machine was quite large."hey, he finally got one right!!!!
SHAZAM!

virtually every Spence Alynski statement begins with a false premise and then is expounded upon based on that premise
this was my favorite
"The reporting certainly indicates this has occurred many times, but I'm not aware of any credible count." Spence

so it happened repeatedly just not credibly?

You obviously, as you feel obligated to respond line for line.

I'd note your text has gone from green to red, further proof that non-violent techniques can be perfectly effective at breaking an adversary! :jester:

And you're perhaps spending more time attacking me and how I speak than you are the ideas I present. More fodder for my assertion that conservatives tend to be obsessed with personality rather than substance.

-spence

Agreed.

oh... waaaaaa...Spence Alynski, the great condescender can dish it out but can't take it, he simply pointed out that your "ideas" are flawed and "presented" in a most slippery way...it's one thing to deal with substance but when you continually deal in false assertions and outright misstatements of fact it becomes a personality thing...the only way to respond to you is line by line as you create falsehoods and straw dogs in nearly every line...you should like the RED Spence...

Agreed.

Disagree.

Butch, you have to keep in mind that Spence likes to play devil's advocate. And he'll usually come up with something that's worded in a way that makes it sound a little convincing, if not confusing enough to have some people believe him. He definitley knows the right language to spin things to sound good to people like JD who is like Marci to Spence's Peppermint Patty.

Haha... I just like fanning the pissing match fires. I've just been reading this thread for comedy's sake now. Nothing really going on in it any more.

That was pretty friekin funny Duke.

Day 4 and this thread still has legs... Way to go keyboard orators of the electronic realm.

I actually forgot what this is about. And since I usually have nothing of substance to add to threads anyways, I resort to trying to get a rise out of you and Spince.:grins:

Exactly. 4 pages and about 10 topics covered.

There is nothing so vile and despicable as a someone that would risk and sacrifice the lives of innocents as a means of stroking their own pompous over inflated ego.

Are we still talking about Obama, or have we reverted to Bush talk again?