"Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks"

[sabra]

Joe Scarborough, Bill Bennet, Shaun Hannity, even some lawmakers have recently evoked this phrase in correlation to interrogation(torture) tactics.

Supposedly we tortured the hell out of this man, which allegedly has resulted in foiled terrorists attacks. There for these tactics are essential in the war on terra (according to these folks).

However do we now consider every detainee "Khalid Shaikh Mohammed"? Well of course not, they say. But we'll sweep a whole bunch of them, and those who are "innocent" will be identified and released.

What about the 50+ warning prior to 9/11, where Richard Clarke proclaimed that the warning sirens were blaring? They were there w/o using these new interrogation(torture) tactics.

And the answer that Scarborough, Bennet, Hannity, et al give is "we must do what we got to do" to make sure we aren't attacked on our shores again.

Is it even worth debating with these people?

[Loonman]

1. Is it even worth debating with these people?

No, I'd call them Nazis to their faces if I could.

[sabra]

2. Sometimes when I hear the things they spew,

I think this can't be real?

[leftstreet]

3. It's the last gasp of the Koolaid servers

Their desperation is ramping up. They're spinning out of control.

:popcorn:

[sabra]

4. I'll give them credit though, once they pick a talking point

they really go full throttle with it.

[leftstreet]

5. True! They're worse than televangelists.

[zbdent]

6. Is this what they're going to start saying in response to

"Why haven't you caught Osama bin Laden?"

Their response:

"Osama bin who? It was K.S.M.!!!"

[turbo_satan]

7. I propose the following thought experiment...

This applies to Scaborough, Hannity, Coulter, Rush, and anybody else who might advocate using torture to obtain information...

Take the individual in question and begin to torture them, with death being a probable and realistic outcome of the chosen technique. Ask them if they were responsible for the 9/11 attacks and, if they weren't, who was. I guarantee you that each and every one of the above torture advocates would offer either themselves or a fabricated or real associate as the perpetrator of the crimes in question in order to save their own hide (literally). Coulter would admit that she was OBL once you chopped off a finger or two and sodomized her with a plunger. Rush would admit to being KSM once a hot piece of jagged glass was inserted into his urethra. Hannity would offer up Colmes as the 20th hijacker once you drugged him and gang-raped him in front of his kids. Scarborough would admit that he hated America and had committed treason if you held him under water until he began to pass out and then attached battery clamps to his testicles and pulled his teeth out one at a time.

This torture business is a distraction. The situations in which its advocates claim it might be merited simply don't happen in real life, and even if they did, the derived information would still be useless. Besides, why let the law get in the way? Just torture the perp and ask for forgiveness later. It's how we do business now, anyway. Hell -- it's how we got into the war in the first place. If a rogue agent tortures a terrorist and it ends up stopping a nuke from going off in NYC, I don't think anybody will bother to prosecute said agent.

In other words, there's no reason to codify torture. It's just another wedge issue, just another rhetorical litmus test that's designed to separate the true patriots from the "girlie-men and whiny lierals who hate our freedom and aren't willing to go the extra mile to protect the people of the USA." As for the sick fucks who advocate using torture, I propose they be subjected to my little thought experiment. That'll show how much courage they have in their convictions.

[sabra]

8. thank you for your brutally honest post.

peace.