The Lies of Michael Hayden

[planosteve]

Steve, I want to ask you a question or two but also want you to know that I'm not trying to pick an argument. A discussion is always better.
Torture, in general terms you seem to be against it. Most folks are. Many doubt that it works.

But......would you torture someone if you thought there was chance to stop a terrorist act? Or on a less stressful level would you give someone else authorization to do so?

No, because there is no chance it will work. If you ask anyone that acutally knows anything about it, John McCain for instance, they will tell you that it doesn't work. Anyone that says it does, either doesn't know anything or is lying.

Of course John McCain says it doesn't work.

If he said it does, he'd have to tell us what information he turned over to the North Vietnamese.

He is the last person on earth to listen to on this.

That's not even the point. McCain's objection was that torture is morally wrong and we should be above it. He was tortured more because his father was a fleet commander than any useful information he possessed.

[GFB]

McCain's full of crap.

NOT torturing the people that plotted to and successfully killed thousands of Americans is immoral.

[Kiamichi]

everyone engaged in the debate knows that it workwas

No they don't. That's why there is a debate. What the experts believe is that people will say whatever they think will make the torture stop. So, even if it happens to be the truth, it can't be relied on.

I was under the impression that the debate was over the morality of torture, not its efficacy. If you are saying that if it is proven to work you have no objection to torture you are the first person I have heard say that.

You don't have to be an "expert" to know that a person undergoing torture will say whatever his captors want, anyone with any sense knows that. What a torturer wants is verifiable information, and the victim is going to know the consequences of lying.

John McCain himself said it best, about his parroting of an anti-American speech his captors tortured him into making--something that I would certainly have done myself in his position: "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."

[jellowrestling]

McCain's full of crap.

NOT torturing the people that plotted to and successfully killed thousands of Americans is immoral.

Nailed it

[planosteve]

You don't have to be an "expert" to know that a person undergoing torture will say whatever his captors want, anyone with any sense knows that. What a torturer wants is verifiable information, and the victim is going to know the consequences of lying

Well, at least you are admitting that it's torture. But, most of the people they tortured were low level that wouldn't even have had any important information. So, they just make stuff up so the torture will stop. Sorting through all of the lies to try to find any legitimate actionable intelligence would be mostly a waste of time.

[planosteve]

This exchange is from a recent appearance by Dick Cheney on FOX News:

Cheney is told about a prisoner, Gul Rahman, who died after unimaginable brutality—beaten, kept awake for 48 hours, kept in total darkness for days, thrown into the Gestapo-pioneered cold bath treatment, and then chained to a wall and left to die of hypothermia. The factors in his death included “dehydration, lack of food, and immobility due to ‘short chaining.” This is Cheney’s response: "3,000 Americans died on 9/11 because of what these guys did, and I have no sympathy for them. I don’t know the specific details … I haven’t read the report … I keep coming back to the basic, fundamental proposition: how nice do you want to be to the murderers of 3000 Americans?"

But Gul Rahman had nothing whatsoever to do with the 9/11 plot.

He had engaged in no plots to kill Americans. He was a guard to the Afghan warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, part of an organization that began by fighting the Soviets in occupied Afghanistan. It had alliances with al Qaeda at the time, but subsequently engaged in peace negotiations with the Karzai government. His brother claims Rahman was even involved in rescuing Hamid Kharzai in 1994. To equate him with individuals who committed mass murder of Americans or who were actively plotting against Americans is preposterous. He was emphatically not a threat to the US. Yet we tortured him to death. And the man running the torture camp was promoted thereafter.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/fox-news-catches-dick-cheney-dissembling-about-torture/383690/2

[ann jusko]

Again, Kiamichi nails it. I think he's one of the most logical people we've ever had on any board.

[GFB]

You don't have to be an "expert" to know that a person undergoing torture will say whatever his captors want, anyone with any sense knows that. What a torturer wants is verifiable information, and the victim is going to know the consequences of lying

Well, at least you are admitting that it's torture. But, most of the people they tortured were low level that wouldn't even have had any important information. So, they just make stuff up so the torture will stop. Sorting through all of the lies to try to find any legitimate actionable intelligence would be mostly a waste of time.

There were 3..all were crucial members of the 9/11 planning.

The one of the 3 that was waterboarded over and over was Khalid Sheik Muhammef..the mastermind of all that happened that day.

Many, many follow up terrorist events were thwarted because of the info gotten from him.

[planosteve]

If you still believe the bin Laden was behind 9/11 you have to come up with an explanation of how bldg. 7 fell straight down into it's own footprint in 8 seconds. And why Fox News announced his death in Dec the same year. And his obit appeared in various newspapers in the middle east at the same time. And why all his videos after that time have all been determined to be fakes.

[GFB]

[planosteve]

:lol:

Couldn't answer a single one could you?

[GFB]

:lol:

Couldn't answer a single one could you?

Buildings 1 and 2 fell straight down on their own footprint, too.

I tend to skip questions that are laughable..I just laugh.