What’s the practical difference between (a) knowing that a guilty party knows the whereabouts of an activated bomb that’s to detonate at some time in the near future, and (b) knowing that a guilty party knows the whereabouts of an unactivated bomb that’s to be set off at some time in the near future by an accomplice? Answer: NOTHING.

2) You shamelessly and quite idiotically say this: “The point is that we can’t allow ourselves to act just as despicable as him.”

Really, I recall KSM plotting the 9/11 attack. You know, that inconvenient fact that many of us still remember. He murdered almost 3,000 innocent civilians that day. Hmmmm, let me get out my moral scale. On one side we have ‘waterboarding a single person’ and on the other we have ‘murdering 3,000 people’. Oh snap! You’re so right — they’re equal.

Stop being a useful idiot long enough to realize that what the Bush Adminstration authorized was not only legal but morally permissible. Oh yeah, it also kept us safe from another attack, which some of us are still silly enough to believe is the primary responsibility of our government.

I stick by my comment earlier yesterday. I support the use of any torture against terrorists to save human lives, especially our own.

Not giving ourselves the license to torture, however, is just one of those things we do to ensure freedom. I’m perfectly willing to sacrifice KSM to torture if there is even the smallest chance it will keep Americans alive. But sacrificing KSM means others have to be sacrificed too. That’s what you can’t stop. The argument that justifies the torture of KSM can easily be used to justify the torture of other similar men.

It’s such a familiar argument it’s hardly worth repeating. But we still need to think about it. Is it worth it to torture some innocent person if there is a chance he might have information which could save American lives? How about torturing a 100 where 99 have no knowledge of anything. Is it worth torturing the innocent for information.

A personal rocket launcher may be an effective deterrent to some criminals. But we know enough to understand that this deterrent is not worth the potential havoc a few rocket launchers could wreak on ourselves.

Freedom isn’t cheap and it’s maintenance requires sacrifice on our part. As satisfying as 183 KSM waterboarding sessions is to my desire for justice and revenge, Freedom requires us to reject the personal satisfaction in favor of a higher ideal.

“What a bunch of crap!”

I’ve grown to love this site as a forum for thoughtful commentary and genuine debate that’s relatively non-partisan.

When other sites link to threads here, they should ask that people look and listen for a bit before shouting their vitriolic party rants. Y’all should save that stuff for Atlas Shrugs and Crooks and Liars.

Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies. In what translates awkwardly into English, Cossiga told the newspaper Corriere della Sera:

“All the (intelligence services) of America and Europeknow well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the Mossad, with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Cossiga was elected president of the Italian Senate in July 1983 before winning a landslide election to become president of the country in 1985, and he remained until 1992.

Cossiga’s tendency to be outspoken upset the Italian political establishment, and he was forced to resign after revealing the existence of, and his part in setting up, Operation Gladio. This was a rogue intelligence network under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 1960s, 1970s and ’80s. Gladio’s specialty was to carry out what they termed “false flag” operations-terror attacks that were blamed on their domestic and geopolitical opposition.

In March 2001, Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated, in sworn testimony, “You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security.”

Cossiga first expressed his doubts about 9-11 in 2001, and is quoted by 9-11 researcher Webster Tarpley saying “The mastermind of the attack must have been a sophisticated mind, provided with ample means not only to recruit fanatic kamikazes, but also highly specialized personnel. I add one thing: it could not be accomplished without infiltrations in the radar and flight security personnel.”

Coming from a widely respected former head of state, Cossiga’s assertion that the 9-11 attacks were an inside job and that this is common knowledge among global intelligence agencies is illuminating. It is one more eye-opening confirmation that has not been mentioned by America’s propaganda machine in print or on TV. Nevertheless, because of his experience and status in the world, Cossiga cannot be discounted as a crackpot.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/9-11_solved118.html

In fact, we have prosecuted war criminals on that basis. And we have executed enemy soldiers and civilians who failed to note the difference. We have steadfastly maintained that torture is morally contemptible and that it should be punished.

We did not prosecute Wehrmacht or Imperial Japanese soldiers who fought against us and shot our men in battle. We did imprison and sometimes execute those who tortured or murdered helpless prisoners, whether civilian or military. The very techniques used on KSM were used by Khmer Rouge and other villains.

This is a principle we established for ourselves and enforced. It’s the basis of part of our claim of moral superiority. We don’t torture. We don’t torture precisely because we are a moral nation that does not allow itself to descend to the level of our enemies.

You propose abandoning our position, aligning ourselves with every junta or paranoid people’s republic that tortures. You propose a stand that strikes at the very core of who and what we are. All wrapped in self-justifying language that is indistinguishable from the justifications of those we rightly condemn as enemies of humanity.

And you would leave us utterly unable to condemn similar actions taken against our soldiers or civilians.

This is moral obtuseness, amorality that attacks the core of what this nation believes and stands for far more effectively than our declared enemies have yet managed.

A number of Bush flunkies say it helped prevent all kinds of terrorist actions all over the world, but they won’t specify any of them under the ever-so-helpful label of “national security”. If Dick Cheney said that he gave KSM a candy bar and it saved 117 lives, but refused to tell you how, when or where, would you believe him?

But you are willing to believe the waterboarding resulted in actual intelligence that resulted in actual terrorist actions?

They defend their actions with “phantom results” and so its OK? These are the same people who lied repeatedly and were caught lying repeatedly, but they are somehow telling the truth on torture?

My God…..

There is a recurrent theme in this thread–that the torture of KSM is acceptable, but it is not the results that seems to satiate everyone; it’s the revenge for KSM’s actions.

Now, if you want to talk about that, well, that’s another discussion (heck, I might even be willing to back you up on that one)– but to cloak the torture in the guise of extracting information for some higher purpose, you are simply masking the real reason you don’t care if the US tortured.

The real scary thing about this thread is that a lot of people seem to willing to believe that torture is effective, when experienced interrorgators argue that most of the time it is just the opposite.

Spend a little time on the Internet (I know, not a great source) and you can find hundreds of people who have been involved in interrorgations who say that torture results in bad information, but you cannot find one–not one–case where someone stands up and says he tortured someone and used the information to stop one specific terrorist act.

Why is that?

For you to suggest that the men who waterboarded KSM are “morally indistinguishable” from KSM himself is utterly offensive. These men aren’t sadistic monsters who engaged in beheadings or indiscriminate murder. They are men who performed a likely unpleasant task to get information to protect their nation. Both the act and the intent are different.

Am I defending brutality for its own sake (hey didn’t you say something about “straw men” earlier?)? Of course not. But I am defending certain acts of “brutality” if they are necessary to help protect a free and virtuous nation like our own. Were the firebombings at Dresden and the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki not “brutal?” Did they make us “morally indistinguishable” from the Nazis or the Japanese? Frankly, I find your argument a bit juvenile.

As to the effectiveness of waterboarding: I disagree. Granted, it may not be the best tool for a “ticking time bomb” scenario, but there’s no question that it DID break KSM. I wonder, would we have had the same success over the same period of time by asking nicely?

Animals can’t help the way they act – they’re animals after all. People are responsible for their actions – although the people who committed these acts believe they aren’t. Do they claim to be animals therefore their behavior should be excused? If that’s the case then who was the trainer, the master – they are the one’s who committed the crime? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness seems to have taken a back seat to existence, restraint, and the pursuit of revenge.

And Clinton whines about a fair trial!!!

Oh right gotcha…It’s OK when we do it…

Before you decide on the basis of no information that I’m a liberal weak-kneed pacifist, or however you’ve constructed your straw man: pro Kuwait war, pro-Afghanistan war, pro Iraq war, for the “surge” before McCain was.

The price we pay for civilization does not involve sinking to the lowest common denominator and become morally indistinguishable from our enemies. We have to stand for something. We have to draw lines somewhere.

What are you defending? Brutality for its own sake?

This was no ticking time bomb scenario. And the notion that waterboarding works is now contradicted convincingly. 183 times? We’ve hung enemy soldiers for less.

We ask a lot of our soldiers. We should not ask them to commit war crimes.

The rest of you wimps and losers can move to Canada, but stop getting in the way of real Americans that are trying to prevent more attacks and protect your sorry a$$.