U.S. official confirms that the Bush administration endorses waterboarding enemy detainees, but also as a training method for U.S. soldiers.
While covering CIA Director Michael V. Hayden’s testimony on CIA interrogation methods, Greg Miller, a Los Angeles Times reporter, revealed that a senior U.S. Intelligence official stated that, “Tens of thousands of American Air Force and naval airmen were waterboarded as part of their survival training.”…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments76 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
What really interests me though, is why none of you are really willing to give the Catholic Inquisition credit where credit is due. From the diagrams I see in Jet's fine article, this is their invention, and is their style of torture, the kind they loved to do, and if they could they still would.
77 - Jet in Columbus
Someday we're going to have to have a conversation about those fantasies of yours... this has been a recorded announcement..
78 - Clavos
Pablo,
"Just the sort of response I expected from you."
I'm nothing if not predictable.
"Thank you for re-affirming my opinion of you."
You're welcome. If I can be of any further service to you, please don't hesitate to ask.
"Aside from your regular caustic remarks generated in my directions, I have yet to see you actually debate ANYONE on the issues with any success whatsoever."
Hmm. Well, I guess I'll just have to keep practicing, then.
"I was hoping at least you would discuss, (certainly not for my benefit) your views on torture..."
A vain hope, obviously.
"...mostly just to once again re-affirm what I suspect is your stance on the issue."
This is not the first time I've seen you jump to an unwarranted conclusion based on your own prejudices (and you are a most prejudiced individual, Pablo).
In this instance, I merely voiced the opinion that, if we teach our troops about waterboarding during their training by having them experience it, the fact that we do so is not the business of any other nation.
That statement implies neither an endorsement nor a condemnation of the practice; therefore, your conclusion from only that statement, about where I stand on torture, whatever it might be, is purely speculative.
"Have a nice tidy all American life Clavos."
Why, thank you, Pablo. But, I'm also a Mexican citizen, and tend to look at most issues from that perspective as well as the American one, so I can't truthfully say I'm "all American."
79 - Jet in Columbus
Sometimes I wish I had your calm Clavos...
80 - Clavos
Jet,
As I said above, in the final analysis it's all just pixels on a screen.
A lesson I learned from gonzo marx, BTW.
81 - Jet in Columbus
Whatever happened to Gonzo-I miss him
82 - Pablo
Clavos Re post 78 where you said:
"(and you are a most prejudiced individual, Pablo).
I am in total agreement with this statement. However as regards to a person's race, gender, ethnicity, or wealth, I have no prejudice. When it comes to political views however that is another story. A few examples. The root of prejudice as you must know is based on pre-judging. When I read, watch tv or hear a person for instance espousing how they are pro-life (an absurd phrase on its face) I assume almost invariably that that person also supports the state killing people if they are found guilty of a capital offense.
Another example Clavos, is the use of pre-emptive military force when our nation has not been attacked; when I see a person who espouses this blatantly un-american viewpoint, I almost always assume (pre-judge) that that person for instance is probably an adherent to the Patriot Act, and/or is in support of vast databases to wiretap American citizens in violation of the fourth amendment.
These are just two examples of my political prejudices that I have learned from years of watching and seeing various correlations that seem to follow certain political viewpoints. Is it politically correct? God I hope not, but in most cases the political prejudices that I have acquired have not let me down. Give me two or three political opinions on a subject of the day, and I can almost always tell where a person stands on various other issues. Am I ever wrong? Certainly, however my prejudices do not hinder a person from employment, housing, or various other necessities of life, and I make no apologies for them whatsoever Clavos.
So yes I made prejudicial statements regarding what I think are your viewpoints regarding torture. I also left a wide berth for you to respond with your opinion which so far you have not, therefore I am even more convinced that you do support torturing other human beings. I may be wrong, but I doubt it, having read some of your other political viewpoints in the past.
If I sound acerbic in my characterization of you it is not without cause sir. I certainly have not been the one on this forum to cast the first stone, and as I do not believe in "spreading the other cheek" as it were, have only responded to you in kind, and will continue to do so when I feel that it is warranted.
The thrust of my original argument with you however had nothing to do with torture per se. It had to do with your arrogant statement that other countries should mind their own business regarding how we train our troops. A mild example at best, however I could not help but see the typical double standard that people such as yourself espouse regarding foreign policy.
On another note, I get great entertainment value watching you and various other amateur pundits talk about the electoral process, as if any of it means a hill o beans. It doesn't, and the sooner that people such as yourself realize this, that you are just spinning your wheels, because the electoral process in this nation is FIXED, the sooner we may be able to return this country to "we the people". As it is now it is controlled in total by multi-national corporations, the Rockefellers, the CFR, the Bilderbergs, and of course the "City of London" of which I am sure (prejudice intended) that you are completely unaware of. And they are laughing at YOU and your ilk all the way to the FED.
So have fun with your dialogues of Clinton, Obama, McCain, etc. Guess what? They ALL work for the same people, and it is not you or me! However you are certainly entitled to think that they do, in fact they hope that you do! Enjoy. :) :)
83 - Pablo
Clavos,
If my view of the world is Kafkaesque, then yours is extremely naive.
84 - Clavos
And I am blissful in my naiveté (and probably a LOT happier than you), Pablo.
85 - Pablo
Clavos:
Ignorance is bliss, enjoy!
86 - Clavos
You've misquoted, Pablo, but I get the idea and I will enjoy.
Far more than you will...
87 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Yup! Ignorance is bliss alright. I'm going back to sleep. Wake me up when the missiles start fallin'....
88 - Clavos
The missiles will do that for you, Ruvy...
89 - Jet in Columbus
Valium can't be instantly transmitted electronically can it?
90 - Dr Dreadful
Pablo, where you struggle on credibility with me is that, with your every post it seems, you toss out yet one more new organization which you claim is controlling the world.
Yes, The X Files has a lot to answer for...
91 - Clavos
Here you go, Doc:
The most recent...
Are you not telling us something, Doc?
92 - bliffle
If we can waterboard our soldiers after they enlist, why not waterboard them before they enlist? That should really ease our recruitment troubles.
So, let's suppose we round up some good, healthy, adult Americans of indisputably good character, like, say, Chelsea Clinton and those 5 Romney lads, and waterboard them before they show up for enlistment (as I'm sure they soon will, coming from families of avid war-supporters).
We'd probably be doing them a favor by sending the recruitment van directly to their homes, so the poor dears don't have to drive down to the recruitment center.
We can call it "Preemptive Enlistment".
Then, while waterboarding them for training purposes we ask them how long they want their recruitment to be, and provide a spectrum of choices.
For example, the Kindly Old Recruiting Sergeant asks them, while bobbing their heads under water: "I don't want to pressure you, heaven forfend, but would you like that enlistment to be for 5 years, or just to please your Kindly Old Recruiting Sergeant would you like to make it 10 years?"
93 - Jet in Columbus
Be careful Bliff, Suss could warn you about old news and changing the subject!
94 - Pablo
Dread,
I thought you were a Brit! Perhaps my recollection is failing me. The Knights Templar established the City of London, and also modern banking, today most of the world'd biggest banks are located inside the square mile of the City of London. As to adding new groups, not really. Take your pick, however imho the most influential and powerful of all of these groups is the Bilderberg group formed in 1952 by former SS officer Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. Should you have any interest in this group there is an excellent book "The True Story of the Bilderberg Group" written by Daniel Estulin and available at amazon.
Take a chance, open your mind, read the book, you just might learn something new about the world in which you live.
There is a plan afoot to get rid of 90% of the humans on the planet, install one world global dictatorship, with two types of humans, rich, and the slaves that will service them. The various instruments through which this goal is being achieved are the CFR, Chatham House, The Bilderbergs, and the UN. My primary sources on these groups are, CFR and Chatham House, Quigley, Bilderbergs, Estulin, the UN Joan Veon.
95 - Dr Dreadful
It's news to me, Clav. Last time I looked, the City was a bunch of offices with an after-dusk population of approximately zero.
I reckon Dr Makow has to rent a fleet of trucks to carry around all those loads of bollocks.
96 - Jet in Columbus
How diabolical!
97 - Clavos
"There is a plan afoot to get rid of 90% of the humans on the planet"
Actually, it's only a little over 80%:
"Its goal: to reduce the human population from its current level of over 5 billion people to below 1 billion people within the next two to three generations..."
And it would do the planet a LOT of good...
98 - Pablo
Clavos,
Why quibble over a few hundred million people? As to doing the planet a lot of good, do you think that the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, the Queen, the Bush's, and the rest of the rulers are going to lose even one of their very own in said holocaust? I don't, now if they are to cull the population and start with those families I am all for it!
Perhaps Clavos, since you think that it is a good idea, perhaps you can volunteeer you and yours to be the first to go! Somehow, however I doubt it, meaning that it is alright to eliminate others as long as its not your flock. How utterly selfish.
Thus you have the crux of the problem in a nutshell. I suppose we should start with indigenous third world humans, who consume 90% less than the average american in terms of resources, and probably emit less than 2% of the carbon that average americans consume, but hey, we have been exterminating them quite effectively for the past 500 years, why stop now?
The Ugly American never stops, he/she is more entitled to life, liberty (cough) and the pursuit of happiness than those ignorant savages.
Clavos you make my arguments so very very easy. Do the planet good my arse!
99 - Clavos
Heh.
Zealots are soooo easy!
Here's yer leg back, Pablo.
100 - Jet in Columbus
Why do I have the feeling I've walked in on a script meeting of a really bad episode of a 60s Batman show?
101 - MAOZ
Ruvy esrim v'echad: Hey, are you familiar with Devash? Check out the 2nd part of The Nature of Our War.
102 - Jet in Columbus
CNN is now speculating that the 9/11 conspirators were waterboarded and whether they can have most evidence against them because they were tortured.
103 - Deano
Pablo,
Prince Bernhard and the SS - is this another one of your imaginary facts?
Prince Bernhard and teh Dutch Royal Family fled the Netherlands and took refuge in England when the germans invaded. Bernhard ended up at work in the war planning councils, logged 1,000 hours in Spitfires (crashed two of them), flew on a B-24 bombing V-1's, and from 1942 to 1944, flew as a pilot with the Royal Air Force and helped organise the Dutch resistance movement.
He was present during the armistice negotiations and German surrender in Hotel de Wereld ("The World Hotel") in Wageningen in The Netherlands on May 5, 1945.
I suggest a little fact-checking on your comments might be called for....
104 - Dave Nalle
CNN is now speculating that the 9/11 conspirators were waterboarded and whether they can have most evidence against them because they were tortured.
You do realize that in the entire history of the use of waterboarding by the US only THREE people have been waterboarded, right? One of those does happen to be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who is one of those going up for trial, but the other 5 were not waterboarded.
Dave
105 - Jet in Columbus
Oh for chrissakes...CNN is now speculating that three of the 9/11 conspirators were waterboarded and whether they can have most evidence against them because they were tortured.
106 - Jet in Columbus
Deano, has any checked to see if Pablo works for the omnipotent Nalle?
107 - Jet in Columbus
Someone really needs to talk to the Washington Post about printing old news! A paragraph from an article written only hours ago reads...
"But Hartmann declined to answer questions about the admissibility of evidence obtained against Mohammed by waterboarding, a technique that the CIA has acknowledged using to extract information from him and from two other al-Qaeda members who are not among those charged today. The technique, which simulates drowning, has been widely described as torture."
But all of us have known about this for months now right?
108 - Pablo
Deano,
From wikepedia about Prince Bernard of the Netherlands.
"Bernhard was a member of the NSDAP, the SA and a special branch of the SS called the "Reiter SS."
Nice try though Deano.
109 - Pablo
Deano,
One other reference to Prince Bernard of the Netherlands taken from:
'H. R. H. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands; an authorized biography' Harrap, 1962. by Alden Hatch
"The story that the Prince of the Netherlands once wore the black uniform of Hitler’s SS is quite true."
I do my homework Deano, I suggest that you do yours, next time you want to cast stones on my writing as to FACTS sir.
110 - Pablo
Oh and Deano?
Please send me more information on imaginary facts that you think that I have conjured up out of thin air, I will gladly provide documentary evidence to the contrary. Next.
111 - Pablo
Dave you said:
"You do realize that in the entire history of the use of waterboarding by the US only THREE people have been waterboarded, right?"
This statement can hardly be construed as accurate. You might want to revise and say that in the entire history THAT IS KNOWN ABOUT, waterboarding by the US only three people have been waterboarded. For you to make such an amazing claim as FACT, which it cannot be corraborated due to the clandestine nature of the torturers being in the CIA or another clandestine intelligence group, is rather hard to swallow.
I submit to you that more than likely many more human beings have been tortured by these organizations, in addition many humans have been tortured in rendition by other nations, with our tacit approval.
I would very much like to hear you to expound on YOUR opinion on the use of torture Dave. I am all ears.
112 - Jet in Columbus
The Bilderberg group was waterboarding the Prince of Netherlands?
113 - Clavos
The reporter asks his subject,
"When did you stop beating your wife, sir?"
114 - Jet in Columbus
Good point, Clavos... sort of
115 - Clavos
Thanks Jet.
It referred to comment #111; yours kinda slipped in there when I wasn't looking.
116 - Jet in Columbus
Clavos, I like it when you participate in one of my articles... Though I always don't agree with you I loke you "intellectual style"
117 - Jet in Columbus
diabetic rhetenopathy-Like your intellectual style
118 - Dave Nalle
This statement can hardly be construed as accurate. You might want to revise and say that in the entire history THAT IS KNOWN ABOUT, waterboarding by the US only three people have been waterboarded. For you to make such an amazing claim as FACT, which it cannot be corraborated due to the clandestine nature of the torturers being in the CIA or another clandestine intelligence group, is rather hard to swallow.
Look, I'm just going with the testimony presented to Congress. In the absence of ANY contradictory evidence we have to assume that testimony is correct. If you have actual evidence, not unfounded suspicions, of other waterboardings by US personnel, do share. Hell, call the Washington Post - they'd be interested.
I submit to you that more than likely many more human beings have been tortured by these organizations, in addition many humans have been tortured in rendition by other nations, with our tacit approval.
I never said a word about what has been done by other countries under rendition in the 200+ years we've been practicing it. I doubt they use waterboarding though, when they have access to much more effective methods.
I would very much like to hear you to expound on YOUR opinion on the use of torture Dave. I am all ears.
Why do you care? It's just an opinion. Do you think that knowing my opinions helps to legitimize yours? No matter how many of us share the same opinion it still doesn't change reality.
But I'll humor you. I think torture is a violation of individual rights, and therefore should never be practiced on anyone by government or other individuals. That having been said, like any absolute it runs into problems in the real world where arguments of exigency and the 'greater good' sometimes trump ethics and we all shed a tear and move on and try to make sure it never happens again.
Dave
119 - Pablo
Dave
Thank you for sharing your opinion regarding torture.
120 - troll
Dave - waterboarding was used with regularity in Vietnam
121 - Clavos
What's your source for that, troll?
122 - troll
I was introduced to the technique and its use by a handle bared mustachioed spook in the early 70's
for some reportage see this...Pablo doesn't need to contact the Post
123 - Dr Dreadful
I think the justification goes: It's all right when we do it, because we're doing it for the right reasons...
124 - Jet in Columbus
I agree with Dave (dear god no!). As I've said before "since when does expressing an opinion require having stats to back it up.
I do it all the time
Much to the chagrin(sic) of others...
125 - Jet in Columbus
Like they say Doc "Do as I say, not as I do."