You notice all the water boarders were kids in uniform.
Reporters are always asking if people would use torture in questioning. If you watch the experts on that closely, their body language is impatience. The REASON reporters ask this is because torture is sexy topic. By contrast real professional interrogation is BORING.
But torture is not the question. Torture simply does not work. Torture, from the Inquisition to the Democratic Peace Loving Peoples’ Republics, has always been used when you know what you want someone to say. It makes them say it.
Asking a pro about torture is like asking a jockey about carrying the horse.
To yield results, you want your subject caught quickly and BORED. Torture is a lot of things, but it isn’t boring. A bored man will TALK. He will give you all those little reactions you need so badly. You can find reasons to talk about a list of towns, one by one. You can see the one that hits home, something is going on there.
You don’t know WHAT, but you’ve got a WHERE. Then you need to think about it and orient your discussion accordingly, preferably days later. For the press, this is useless. As I said, a real description of that dramatic word Interrogation would lose readers fast.
As to whether one might be WILLING use torture, one thing I have never heard a Nam vet talk about was looking at a village after the Peace Loving Liberation Army got through with it. The media do NOT want to discuss that. All that kind of thing was done by the Nazis, and any discovery on that is publishable.
Stalin killed millions of people before and after the War, but during the War he never hurt a soul but the Enemy
I saw what the Anti-Racist Liberation Fighters did to people in Africa and South America, but none of that was ever discussed in the media or in the World Council of Churches, which supported them. But when terrorism hit New York, the whole thing changed.
I still wonder what the media’s reaction would have been if it was their beloved Idealists who did 9-11. They devoted untold resources for decades to proving that Oswald, fellow Idealist, did not kill Kennedy.
Nobody discusses this Idealistic Communist theme of the media. A lot people were for torture after 9/11. I can’t tell you my attitude because the question is thrilling but totally irrelevant. I cannot say I would not use torture to prevent what I saw happen. But the point is torture is useless.
As usual when the media take a topic up, it’s just STUPID.
Anyone who knows instances where torture was useful are welcome to correct me. I never saw any hint of it myself, and it is totally out of synch with any interrogation technique I know about. We were trying to find out information. Torture is used to make people say what you WANT them to say.
#1 by Epiphany on 02/25/2010 - 7:09 am
Torture is wrong!
#2 by Dave on 02/25/2010 - 12:32 pm
People cannot stand up to real interrogation.
The truth is invariably discovered.
But real interrogation is rare. The interrogator has to know the right questions to ask.
This is important to us because Political Correctness cannot stand up to real interrogation.
The Mantra is about asking the right questions.
The matter of torture is important because waterboarding proves that a lion’s share of the public have no moral bearings.
They were easily manipulated into accepting the practice. They have no shame. They have no capacity for moral reason.
#3 by shari on 02/25/2010 - 12:40 pm
I think that torture is rarely,if ever, applied to the TRULY guilty. It’s use is to spread terror and give psychopaths room to operate. It’s evil!
#4 by backbaygrouch4 on 02/25/2010 - 1:14 pm
Those justifying the use of torture paint a movie scenario. Capture of a principal. Imminent disaster. Limited to such torture seems the right thing to do. Problem, in real life this does not occur. The ticktocking time watch world of Hollywood is a fiction. A pass given on that basis will quickly degenerate into a Get Out Of Jail free card to stupidest, the basest, the most sadistic among us. A defense of torture is a mirage that fades the closer you get to the facts of any given situation.
Years ago in an adult beverage discussion some friends came up with the following technique to use on the young Muslims plucked from Iraq and Afghanistan. Hire a one horse isolated Greek island for the winter season and hold them in a tourist hotel. Cooperation would yield a pass with enough pocket money to visit a town wherein would reside a few attractive pliant women. Call it the Mata Hari ploy. Having observed the results of many a US air craft carrier debarking young sailors into a Med port, I think it might yield results.
As a pro, is it too silly? Or too hard to explain to Congress? Granny mentioned something about more success with honey than vinegar.
#5 by Alan B on 02/25/2010 - 2:52 pm
The Dumbest Generation, we need a cause!
The Sha of Iran and the Stavic killed 5,000 enemies over 30 years, he must go cried the Leftist and he did leave. The Leftist Ayatolla kills 20,000 in one year and you hear nothing. Love, peace, equality, the rest of you Shutup!
The 911 attacks were an inside job,nano thermite was used. Never before has a steel highrise collasped by fire. Funny how the 500,000 lb aircraft traveling at 500mi/hr is left out of the picture. Those planes were halograms dummy! the rest of you Shutup!
Obama is a community organizer and a professor of Constitutional Law. The Soviet one? Obama is qualified to run for president because he is Black. The empty suit is now running a nation and the leftist wack jobs are along for the ride. Hope, Change and Believe the dark skinned Messia preached as white retards fainted at his feet. Racist, hater, your negitive, shutup!