You decide
To listen to the milquetoasts in both the media and government, you'd think that the various intelligence gathering agencies were waterboarding every swarthily complected individual who knows the difference between a shwarma and a Shiite. It turns out that their alarmist and panic-mongering accusations aren't quite true.
Take a wild guess how many bad guys we've waterboarded... go ahead, guess.
50?
75?
100?
500?
1,000?
10,000?
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
How about a whopping THREE?
Here's just some of the article from the uber-liberal MSNBC; (emphasis mine)
~Khalid Sheik Mohammed, mastermind of 9-11; and the man who killed Daniel Pearl; and
~Hambali, the Indonesian terrorist responsible for the Bali bombings in December 2002 that killed more than 200, including five Americans.
Two of the three—KSM and Hambali—were chosen for water boarding because they were resistant to other interrogation methods…one, Zubaydah, because he initially told the CIA of an impending attack, then refused to discuss it, according to two officials.
A fourth high ranking al-Qaida member, Ramzi bin al Shibh—organizer of the Hamburg cell that was the core of the 9-11 attacks—agreed to talk with just the threat of water-boarding, said the officials.
According to multiple officials, the detainees reacted differently to the most extreme measures. Hambali, for example, quickly told all he knew — “cried like a baby” after his first water boarding session, recounted another official. KSM underwent at least two sessions and other extreme measures before talking. "KSM required, shall we say, re-dipping," said another former senior intelligence official.
Bin al Shibh was viewed as a weakling and a narcissist and the agency played heavily on that. He quickly became the most cooperative of those detained, although he recent months he has once again refused to talk.
Do what ya gotta do.
And yes, the wimps out there will wail and gnash their teeth how I'm in favor of "torture". I dare them to view the beheading of Nick Berg (WARNING! Very graphic), then tell me how "wrong" waterboarding is.
I have to admit that I was surprised that the number of people water boarded was so small.
ReplyDeleteAmen!
ReplyDeleteYa' wrote: "It turns out that their alarmist and panic-mongering accusations aren't quite true."
Is it ever true?
Here's the truth: no one in the media business knows the history of jihad. They have zero context, hence their view that it is a Western Foreign Policy blunder, a pouting century of retaliation against "colonialism." They judge Islamic "feelings" by their own spoiled warm fuzzy cake life, "can't we all just get along?"
Media think in terms of headlines, not history.
Three? THREE?
ReplyDeleteGood grief! at SERE school they Waterboarded us all!
hmm. O have your blog bookmarked adn read it often but now I am starting to wonder. If, as a Catholic, you do not abide by the law, secular, international or maoral, by not condoning torture AND you pass onthe grisly beheading of a humanbeing (I'm sure the terrorist love the free publcicity)....aren't you being the worst kind of hypocrite? If youare so Catholic, why aren't you acting as a true disciple of Christ?
ReplyDeleteVenite,
ReplyDeleteAllow me to answer your objections and comments one at a time.
If, as a Catholic, you do not abide by the law, secular, international or maoral, by not condoning torture...
This particular objection applies only if you consider waterboarding "torture". By it's very definition, physical torture must include the real possibility of permanant injury/death. Waterboarding has the possibility of neither. Let's be honest... WB'ing is nothing more than a head-game scare tactic... and it works.
Also, as far as "the law" you referred to, there is no national law against WB'ing. There is no international treaty that the United States has ratified via the constitutional process, so whatever grand pronouncements the UN has made on the subject, they most certainly don't legally apply to us. Lastly, concerning "moral law", I consider it VERY moral to screw with these guys heads so we can stop future minor incidents such as.... oh, I don't know.... the Bali Bombings or even another 9/11?
AND you pass onthe grisly beheading of a humanbeing (I'm sure the terrorist love the free publcicity)
I really don't think the terrorists need my help in passing the word out to the world in general that they have no qualms whatsoever about beheading captives.
....aren't you being the worst kind of hypocrite?
How does that make me a hypocrite? Because I don't subscribe to the notion that we should ask them pretty please for information that conceivably save hundreds if not thousands of lives?
As IR correctly pointed out on the comment before yours, our own Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen undergo WB'ing in the various Branches Survival Schools. There is nothing... I SAY AGAIN... nothing life-threatening about waterboarding. If it can make a terrorist "cry like a baby" and spill his guts (give us life-saving information), I'm all for it. Aren't you?
To be perfectly honest with you, Venite, I think you've swallowed the Liberal Media's spin on waterboarding hook, line and sinker.
If youare so Catholic, why aren't you acting as a true disciple of Christ?
Doesn't being "a true disciple of Christ" entail something along the lines of protecting the weak and innocent?
In the Name of Chritian Charity, shouldn't we do everything possible to stop future IED attack, which by the way, kill hundreds of American troops and thousands of Iraqi civilians?
In the Name of Chritian Charity, shouldn't we do everything possible to stop future Bali Bombings?
In the Name of Chritian Charity, shouldn't we do everything possible to stop future 9/11's?
Venite, the bottom line is this; is it immoral to play a rather unpleasant head-game with murderus thug in order to save thousands and thousands of lives? I say no. Infact, I believe we should be even more aggressive.
I'd also like to point out to you that the terrorists have demonstrated time and time again that they have no problem whatsoever in setting off bombs targeting children.
And what did Christ say about those who would harm children? Something about tying a millstone around their neck and casting them into the sea?
Venete,
ReplyDeleteI've been waterboarded, and had the living shit knocked out of me by SERE instructors. It well and truely sucks.
But I've also had the privelege of going into a communist jail, and getting people who had been tortured out. I didn't get branded with hot machetes. I didn't get barbed wire inserted into places left unmentioned. I could go on about some other things I didn't get, but I've seen.
Those were communists, who were heir to European ethics. The Jihadists are not. I don't condone waterboarding prisoners---I'm not sure it's entirely effective anyway, and I think we should be better than our enemies.
But the operative here isn't what you think--3 people does not constitute a policy--it constitutes an anomoly. But the traitorous dickweeds in the MSM want to make us look bad to ourselves so it seems as if where breaking out the electrodes and thumb screws for everyone. The operative here is propaganda.
The MSM has, since the 60's atleast, taken the view that they are always to be inopposition to the powers that be, not report the truth.
I've been on the ground for news stories that were reported by Time, Newsweek and CNN. NOT IN A SINGLE INSTANCE HAVE THE REPORTS REFLECTED REALITY. I have watched "journalists" creat events just to vcover them, and I have watched areported from time deliberatly give away a covert hide to get a story and photo op.
You sir, have resigned your critical faculties to those who want you to think for them, and ignore a reality that quite possible will devour us all. And since that includes my grandkids, I will simply say you use our faith as a justification for your squemish and cowardly comfort.
I think you are a poltroon!