Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Isn't that where that Whitman guy shot up a bunch of people in Texas?> No. This one's in L.A. Tallest building west of the mighty Miss.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Sarcasm doesn't change the fact that the dates simply don't line up. They broke up the plot in 2002 before he was captured, so unless waterboarding somehow provides time travel capabilities, the dates don't line up in such a way as to say the waterboarding of KSM broke up the Library Tower plot.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh Unless there were two plots - one to fly buildings into it, one to plant a bomb in it.
Originally Posted By piperlynne See Cheney's right (gasp- I *said* that??) we DO need the rest of those documents.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh We should also be told which members of Congress were briefed on the techniques used, and when. It wouldn't be right if members of Congress authorized this, and later cried, "Torture!"
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>We should also be told which members of Congress were briefed on the techniques used, and when. It wouldn't be right if members of Congress authorized this, and later cried, "Torture!"<< On this we agree 100%.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Unless there were two plots<< But if that were the case, don't you think the Bush Administration would have trumpeted that fact?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Of course they would have. Doug is grasping at straws again. <<You insinuated something you have no proof of, and I called you on it.>> <Give me a break. You can't prove we tortured anyone, but that doesn't stop you from claiming it.> People we tortured have said we did, and provided details found credible by international human rights organizations. Even some of our own people have admitted it, as in the link I provided on another thread. And, of course, the Red Cross, the recognized authority, has said flat out that we tortured. You don't want to admit we did. I get it. But we did. It's not a claim, it's a verified fact. <<And that "evidence" would be...?>> <His actions before he was captured. Did you know the guy he was supposed to fly to Pakistan with was detained at the German airport? Do you know who paid for his ticket? Do you know what his mom testified? You might want to look into this some more before you take this guy's word over US officials.> Yes, I know all that. Yet we let him go as innocent. That's the bottom line. <<But we tortured him anyway.>> <I don't believe we did.> "Believe" what you will; as so often, it has nothing to do with the facts. <<that doesn't speak well of Schroeder's government - too cozy with Bush??>> <Considering Chancellor Schroeder's remarks and actions compared to Chancellor Merkel's, unlikely. More likely is that there's some evidence that we and the Germans have, that has not been released, that warranted his detention.> "More likely?" Once again, insinuation about the way you'd LIKE things to be, without a shred of evidence to back it up. But, of course, that's what you do.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 The other thread kind of died, so... Note, too, news that has just come to light. It looks like one of the reasons some of these people were tortured was not for any "ticking time bomb" fantasy scenario. It was to try to find a Saddam-Al Qaeda connection in order to justify the invasion of Iraq. Of course, there was no such connection, so we tortured people to find information that didn't even exist. Lovely. <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclat...45/print" target="_blank">http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclat...45/print</a> "The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist. Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime. The use of abusive interrogation — widely considered torture — as part of Bush's quest for a rationale to invade Iraq came to light as the Senate issued a major report tracing the origin of the abuses and President Barack Obama opened the door to prosecuting former U.S. officials for approving them." (snip) "There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity. "The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there." (snip) "There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder," he continued. "Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies." Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said. A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney , told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba , detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq . "While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq ," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results." Excerpts from Burney's interview appeared in a full, declassified report on a two-year investigation into detainee abuse released on Tuesday by the Senate Armed Services Committee ."
Originally Posted By DAR <<People we tortured have said we did, and provided details found credible by international human rights organizations.>> So we're going to take the word of certain people whose credibility and trustworthiness might be a little sketchy? That's a little dicey if you aks me.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>So we're going to take the word of certain people whose credibility and trustworthiness might be a little sketchy?<< But enough about Dick Cheney...
Originally Posted By DAR People seem to forget that DVC but I guess it goes along with the vaginafication of this country.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I'll never look at the Mississippi River the same way again. Not to mention Pike's Peak.
Originally Posted By DVC_Pongo >>>I'll never look at the Mississippi River the same way again. Not to mention Pike's Peak.<<< You lost me K2, is that in reply to DAR? Something about vaginas? Can we use that word?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>It's war. Hello?<< Hello. That doesn't mean we get to treat prisoners any way we'd like. Otherwise, why not just say "Hello? It's crime! Let's beat the hell out of people we arrest because they must know something." But then, that's me. I am in favor of turning the country into a giant female reproductive organ apparently. Better to just talk tough, that'll prove something.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip At least I'm smart enough to know you spell it VIRGINIA. Some people just don't know their states!
