Which ones?  Those who project highly parochial, hyper-literal interpretations of the Holy Bible or the Koran?  Six of one...

Something The Church Commission...

Yes, I agree. However, it is not these hardcore fundamentalist that I am most concerned with...

You're missing the point, MK which is this:  no matter the result, the technique was torture, pure and simple.  And against every principle upon which this country was founded and purports to uphold.  I don't care how many paid hack lawyers write how many opinions about its legality, it was WRONG.  And we the majority of American people know it.

From what I have come to know, going back to the Pirates of the Barbary Coast (and to ignore that is foolish at best), the only thing that the radical Islamists respect is brute force...

Who is exploiting who, though?

IIRC, the US' right wing has been using 18-19th century technology well past its expiration date.  Gunboat Diplomacy was successful only when the abused nations were unable to function on their own.  When it was banana republics that needed the US' naval power to get their product to a broader market, the US won every time.  But by the time OPEC was created, it was obvious that the US had lost control of its minion nations.  But it wasn't until the Iranian Revolution that the US was forced to face the fact that "the natives" didn't exactly worship us as liberators.

Gunship Diplomacy 2.0, Star Wars Edition was doomed to fail as miserably as version 1.x ("Let's bisect an ancient oriental culture, without a plan, end game or exit strategy.")  That much was as plain as the nose on my face.


I'll go one step further and say that torture not only fails to achieve its stated goal; it is also a GIGANTIC "tell", screaming to all who will listen that the torturer is operating from a position of weakness.  You might as well leave the back door open, and your revolver on the table at the other end of the room, while you idly gaze at the moon...

The only good source of HUMINT is from a properly maintained field operation run by your own people, period.


At this point, it's too late to win very many hearts and minds.  It's a lost game for the US.  The best that this country can do for itself is use the Obama administration to its fullest political potential, as an example of "regime change", and more importantly, of repentance for Americans' past wrongs.

Should the President kow tow in the House of Saud?  Hell yes!  A trace of humility is more powerful than a thousand atom bombs...

...and it costs us nothing in US Dollars...

No, I'm kind of WW2'ed out.When my mom was in high school her brother was in Nazi prison camp with a bullet hole in his chest and no meds. If I think about Germany too much I start looking up plans to build nuclear weapons.
 Anyway, I've gone overboard on this topic before and in that light I am out of this thread.

Did you catch any of the WWII Behind Closed Doors documentaries that aired last week? Even though I agree that the Russian people suffered as no other in WWII, Stalin was a bigger monster than even Hitler!

It wasn't clearly explained, that's what made The West Wing one of the few watchable shows in TV history.You had to put a little work in to understanding it.

 I'm sure if you were to view the episode in question again you'd get it.

I'm with the Kurts. Bravo, MK.

The memos were released because an unknown party sued using the Freedom of Information Act, so they were going to be released anyway.

I don't care what they did. We don't do that. That is why we are not terrorists. That is why we are "the greatest country in the world." We have rights, protected by the Bill of Rights, and it doesn't say just Americans.

Yea, it has been like 5 years or so since I have seen this episode so I was obviously and very loosely paraphrasing. However, I may be wrong, but I don't think that her reply was clearly explained as a metaphor for the battle of Stalingrad and I interpreted it as a general conditioning to the long hard Russian winters making them tough people. To me that makes more sense as an all encompassing molding of the Russian psyche over hundreds of years. That is just the way that I took it.

so your solution to terrorism is to just be really nice, do nothing,  and hope they stop blowing us up? 
glad you are not in charge Pollyanna....

The Bush Admin gave the terrorist groups 8 years to build madrassas in countries that did not support their own people, and use these schools to raise up little terrorists.

If we had given humanitarian aid to these people instead of killing them, we might not be in this mess today.

So, because the other side is not "civilized" that means we should become like them? (I would argue that "civilized" nations are just as bad, we just use different methods)

You're missing the point, MK which is this:  no matter the result, the technique was torture, pure and simple.  And against every principle upon which this country was founded and purports to uphold.  I don't care how many paid hack lawyers write how many opinions about its legality, it was WRONG.  And we the majority of American people know it.  The result is not the issue. And, by the way, more than one intel officer who participated in those "enhanced techniques"  (even the use of the phrase makes my stomach turn) readily admits that they just don't know if they could have gotten the same info without the torture....and will never know, now that it's past history.  One officer even has gone on record stating that he believes he was more successful using conventional methods when the torture didn't appear to be getting answers.

THAT is the point MK....Cheney can blow hard all he wants, the fact is it was morally, ethically, humanely WRONG.

Yes, and this is the real crux of the argument. You cannot defeat terrorism by force by its very nature, the only way to defeat terrorism is to take away the motivation in the hearts of the perpetrators and simply meeting force with force does nothing but feed the beast giving the exploitative Jihadist leaders precisely what they want. Look, you may prevent a few more attacks in certain circumstances by the use of torture, but ultimately there is no way to prevent them all. This is why terrorism works, it give the powerless tools to fight against the powerful. The only way to ultimately defeat terrorism is to hold to the democratic ideals that separates us from them, giving the Jihadist no more fodder to feed the long suffering populace of the region who otherwise feel powerless as their countries governments ignore their own peoples needs to placate the US governments unquenchable thirst for inexpensive oil.

I agree with you on one point MK...Nancy Pelosi is as slimy and corrupt as everyone in Bush's administration, and needs to go away NOW.

Umm, no. Barlet asked the Russian ambassador roughly"I don't understand how Russia feels it can  act this way"(paraphrased)

 And the Russian ambassador replies "Because of a long, cold winter"  - which is clearly a reference to the Battle of Stalingrad and the winter of 1942-43.Hitler needed to get past Stalingrad to get to the oil fields.
 This battle is a big  reason why we can all laugh at Exo and his mangling of English, rather than have him be able to laugh at our poor German. Because of what the Russians did , the war turned.

2 million dead in one battle.

Well put? !  Are you kidding me?

Yea, it reminds of a West Wing episode when Bartlett basically ask why the Russians don't trust anybody and the Russian lady replies "it gets very cold in Russia". Really it all comes back to natural resources and the weather.