Second, American ideals of life, liberty, happiness, etc, were violently taken away from 2500 American citizens merely going about their daily lives on 9/11. Those responsible have no rights, except to be sent to get laid by virgins as soon as possible.

This war against islam / fanatical muslims is a modern day Crusade. A battle for control of the world. The western world MUST win this war at all costs, by any means.

He already publicized the first part, which was the questions we asked, and how hard we asked them. How about showing us the results? If the techniques didn’t work, we won’t need them anymore anyway.

I don’t think he’ll ever do that, considering he’s left the table open for more enhanced interrogation, should it be required. Obviously it works, obviously useful information was obtained, and obviously Obama isn’t stupid enough to wipe the table clean of a tactic that is useful and could save lives.

I don’t think torture works – in any way, shape or form. As far as who is conducting the torture or in what country the torture occurs is beside the point. There are other methods that are more effective and that don’t require rationalizations in the collective American psyche. I am not an Obama fan regarding the latest torture meme’s – it’s a human rights violation and both he and his administration should know better. Currently the greatest problem in my opinion is the vacuum of truth regarding all the aspects of this issue.

There are horrors going on around the world every day, and we, comfy, well-protected America, got one day of horror, 7 1/2 years ago. Torture for intelligence does not work, it’s a well-known fact, despite what you see in the movies. People who are being tortured will say everything, anything, they think their captors want to hear. This is not reliable, and will not keep America safe. Furthermore, blowing the crap out of people is not a good long-term solution. Yeah, it may kill off a threat now, but how much longer can we exhaust out resources fighting this war on terror? And how many enemies will we create in that time? And how many allies will we have if we are hypocritical warmongers who torture, abuse, and improperly imprison?
Finally, how can we stand up for America when our core ideals are unity, liberty, justice, and democracy, but we have gitmo, partisan division, stifling of dissent, and fascism ruling our country?

Sounds like the feeling I get with my neti pot, since that’s exactly what I’m doing with it.

I’d call that a double standard.

I’m sure you like feeling like you’re doing something to save the poor, downtrodden masses that we’re holding our tyrannical fists over, but until the reports are revealed that show waterboarding gave bad results, I’m 100% happy to see people getting water poured on them. Either someone goes uncomfortable for a while and people live, or they don’t, and people die.

They publicized the methods and questions that were asked to those boys, how about giving us the answers and results that were rendered?

You talk about sober consideration, but you ignore the preponderance of evidence because it doesn’t agree with you. Yeah, OK. You’re right because you found a small group of experts who agree with you.

Not that those whose opinions are driven by forces other than sober consideration will pay any attention.

Are you concerned if terror suspects are tortured in order to save American lives generally, or only when Americans themselves are participating in the interrogations? Or maybe you are confident that Middle eastern countries and Pakistan treat their high-level terrorist detainies who have actionable intelligence as gently as you would prefer?

The Times again reports that foreign interrogations of Al-qaeda suspects rendered to Pakistan led to the arrests of more high level Al-qaeda operatives. Do you think they asked politely? Or do you care?

Water boarding is torture. Waterboarding issue isn’t about the victims in this case. It’s about us as a society. Do we obey our own laws? Do we obey international treaties that we have signed? Do we have any basis to dispute human rights violations in other countries, when we ourselves did the same thing? Torture is a crime – and the USA tortured people plain and simple. There are no degrees of correctness where torture is concerned – it is an issue incapable of equivocation.