A Look Back At Interrogation History

The Washington Post has an article which reminds us that history continues to reveal itself even after we think the story has been told in its entirety, especially in small but intriguing ways. The veterans of PO Box 1142, a highly secret operation which interrogated high-value Nazi detainees, have just begun to speak about their experiences after honoring their commitment to silence for six decades (via Memeorandum):

The veterans of P.O. Box 1142, a top-secret installation in Fairfax County that went only by its postal code name, were brought back to Fort Hunt by park rangers who are piecing together a portrait of what happened there during the war.
Nearly 4,000 prisoners of war, most of them German scientists and submariners, were brought in for questioning for days, even weeks, before their presence was reported to the Red Cross, a process that did not comply with the Geneva Conventions. Many of the interrogators were refugees from the Third Reich.
“We did it with a certain amount of respect and justice,” said John Gunther Dean, 81, who became a career Foreign Service officer and ambassador to Denmark.
The interrogators had standards that remain a source of pride and honor.
“During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone,” said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. “We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.”

It’s a shame that these men had to wait so long to get their recognition. They appear to have broken many of the secrets of the Nazi war machine — not so much in terms of strategy but more in technology. The PO Box 1142 group kept the detainees incommunicado for weeks at a time, a violation of the Geneva Convention but deemed necessary for the war effort.
Many of them — indeed, most of them — oppose the Iraq war and especially the interrogation techniques applied by the Bush administration. They rightly remain proud of their record of using softer techniques to get the information they needed to stop the Germans. A few of them took the opportunity to make that clear during the ceremonies in New Jersey that honored their service.
It must be said, however, that they faced a different enemy in a different war. The Germans fought to expand territory through traditional warfare, at least as arrayed against the US and the West. While they conducted sabotage missions in the US through espionage, they did not use terrorist infiltrators to attempt to kill thousands of American civilians. They also did not face religious extremists who believed that death brought them to Allah and 72 waiting virgins for taking out women and children. One can make a case that the civilized techniques of PO Box 1142 worked because their detainees also believed themselves civilized and members of the Western culture.
That’s not an argument for torture as traditionally understood. Is waterboarding torture? We use it to train our Navy SEALs and other commando units. Do psychological interrogation techniques amount to torture? Congress has set limits on these techniques which the administration and the military are bound by law to follow — and as I noted yesterday, which the attorneys should review thoroughly to determine the exact boundaries where these techniques cross the line. The existence of those memos do not mean that the administration has broken the law.
One thing is for certain. If today’s New York Times had been reporting during the time of PO Box 1142, it would not have stayed a secret for six decades. It would have been on its front pages in six months.

199 thoughts on “A Look Back At Interrogation History”

  1. So the Bush Administration has had something like 50 “ghost detainees” that the ICRC – which is little more than an anti-American propaganda machine these days – hasn’t been able to visit.
    FDR had at least 4,000.
    What a surprise.

  2. The problem with a lot of these old-timers, it seems, is that every day is still Groundhog Day 1945 for them.
    They’re like my dad: I love him dearly, but he’s so end-stage BDS that he’s now convinced there hasn’t been a war worth fighting since we beat the Axis.

  3. Petula Dvorak, Washington Post: “During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone,” said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. “We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.”
    I’m glad that Mr. Frenkel didn’t, too. Our war with the nazis was tough and desperate, and both sides did some pretty horrible things, but I think both sides also tried to fight as “clean” a war as they could. The Germans did not (generally) abuse our POWs, and we (generally) did the same.
    The same cannot be said of our enemy in this war.
    I would also like to ask Mr. Frenkel if he’d “lay hands” on a German saboteur if he thought the villainous Hun had planted a bomb that would kill thousands of American civilians if it wasn’t found and defused.
    I don’t like the idea of torture. The honor of our country means something to me, and I don’t want to sully it by stooping to barbarity. However, if it is a choice between saving thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of American lives and being brutal… I’d take a terrorist’s two month old daughter apart with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch if I thought it would get him to talk. I won’t say, “God forgive me”, because I’m pretty sure that He wouldn’t for something so horrible, and anyway I think I’d deserve to go to hell for such a thing. I will say that I hope that neither I nor any other American is ever faced with such an awful choice.
    Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to look at myself in the mirror… and vomit.

  4. docjim505 ~ when you consider Honor Killings, women stoned to death for the sin of being raped, children being raised on ‘Death to the Jews’ while learning how to operate bomb belts… I really do not think a terrorist would care much what you did to his kids. He’d just see it as proof he is doing the Right thing.
    I agree with Ayan Hirsi Ali- islam Must Be Defeated, before it will become anything close to benign. It must suffer humiliation world-wide, and lasting for decades.

  5. In its way, this proves the theorem of America’s founders. People want control over their government as close as possible. The farther power moves from the people, the more the people agitate to return it.
    “When you have to torture a man, it costs nothing to be polite”
    Winston Churchill
    Or was it “kill a man”?
    This my favorite: “Oderint, dum metuant — Let them hate, so long as they fear.” Cicero
    Last One “I fear the world will jump to the wrong conclusion that because I am in Atlanta the work is done. Far from it. We must kill three hundred thousand I have told you of so often and the further they run the harder for us to get them.”
    — Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, 1864
    Kill torture what’s the difference? At the beginning I believed torture the SOBs. Now after long thought it doesn’t make sense considering our civilization.
    There are great drugs that will vacuum a brain. It’s not complicated. You won’t even remember. And afterwards life on a South Atlantic island playing soccer.

  6. Many of them — indeed, most of them — oppose the Iraq war and especially the interrogation techniques applied by the Bush administration.

    Maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t this the Washington Post? The Post was quite careful to insert attestations from two men of this group who oppose the war. Zero quotations from anyone who might not oppose the war. I doubt I could find a random sample even here in California with that particular distribution. I think we are seeing yet another propaganda story.
    I can see their opposition to the published interrogation techniques (I don’t like them either), but if they interviewed 4,000 and never laid a hand on anyone, they are far more civilized than any interrogation unit I’ve ever read about.

  7. Sounds like the same argument made yesterday- except now the New York Times is to blame for all the problems in Iraq instead of Democrats in Congress?
    The primary reason that the US has found itself mired in an unpopulare war in Iraq is Geroge Bush. Our problems in Iraq were never caused by Democrats in Congress who express opposition to the war and the way it has been conducted (and in doing so apparently come close to committing treason).
    Neither the New York Times or John McCain responsible for the rise of the insurgency and failure of Bush to execute an effective plan to stabilize Iraq.
    The fact remains that Iraq is a relatively small country that the US could have easily invaded and controlled with 400k troops. No one, especially those on the right, should underestimate the power of the US military and our capacity to conquer enemy states in the future. Let’s not pretend that Bush’s tragic mismanagement of this war should be overlooked while trying to fix blame elsewhere.

  8. Hey, I’m Jewish. And, I don’t give a rat’s patooti.
    Because? Well, the current Pope joined the Nazi party.
    One reason for this? You either joined, or you had no hope. (For instance, Jews weren’t allowed to join.)
    Despots are ugly characters. Yes, Hitler got to be on top. Lasted about a dozen years. And, germany shot through the tubes, in a downward spiral.
    Still, for europeans, there was a sense that german’s were more successful than Poles. That there was a “talent” to be had. And, “going to Berlin,” was a sign of “arriving.” Germany had more wealth, too. It’s intellectual achievements were there.
    But hitler, to grab power, used thugs. Brown shirts. And, these dudes were given fancy uniforms. Where nobody else had night sticks. Or guns. And, bullying became a way of life.
    General Patton had some run-in’s with Eisenhower. Eisenhower, fer shur, was no friend of the germans! (If he was? General Patton would have been given the honor of reaching Berlin first.)
    Instead, Eisenhower “manuevered” in a favor to stalin; that eastern europe paid for. In spades.
    So, while eastern europe got to pay the piper; we had, in America, a system to obain “something” from germany’s best. And, brightest.
    You think lots of those folks were demented enough to get hooked on zieg heil salutes? Oh, please. Stop pulling my leg.
    Even on America’s campuses, today. Run by the loony left; its in the departments where math is crucial, that the “banana republic” has much less of a grip.
    Imagine if we “re-invent the wheel.” After the university system collapses; you wouldn’t like to see a sorting process? Where we DON’T reject the scientists; as we give the communists the boot?
    It’s gonna happen, anyway.
    Where the goons, in America, took over our campuses, they tossed out all the old stuff. So they could credential themselves on their “new” garbage.
    For the next round?
    Expect house-cleaning.
    Nah. No one needs to be water-boarded.
    But it will be a good idea to build teams that can function.
    By the way, russia beat us to “space” with Sputnik.
    Again, the KGB are thugs. But the russians actually have a strong genetic component towards science and math.
    Yes. So, too, do the Israelis.
    Lots of people, today, would love to know how the Israelis got into and out of syria, “unnoticed.”
    Want my guess? COSTUMES.
    A whole production, like a broadway show. Of “grocers” … donkey carts. And, costumes. That worked “locally.” Pulling the plug out of the wall. (Maybe, doing this to run a vacuum cleaner?)
    While the russians can’t figure out “theater.”
    They’re looking to solve the mystery; without knowing how to get to first base on owning human skills.
    Not that care.
    As long as putin’s in charge; russia remainbs a stinking pile of horse manure.
    Ya know, I’m proud to be an American. Proud that when wars end, surrenders are possible.
    Proud that WW2 saw some amazing generals. Even while truman was a political hack.
    As to german’s, before you call anyone, NOW, a Nazi; take a look at the Pope. He’s had to deal with it.

  9. I’m sorry but you can’t claim to be “honorable” when you’ve broken the rules. The PO Box vets needed to skirt Geneva rules to accomplish what they did. No doubt they served honorably – but when they broke the rules they also diminished their right to point out the errors of others attempting to do the same.

  10. “It must be said, however, that they faced a different enemy in a different war. The Germans fought to expand territory through traditional warfare, at least as arrayed against the US and the West.”
    Captain, sorry but that argument is lame. Are you saying that the nature of someone’e beliefs affects their ability to withstand interrogation. So is it the 72 virgins that make a difference? Is it that Allah is spelled with 2 As and 2Ls. Are Buddhists in Burma any less determined? They are resisting without even bombs or guns. Are Navy Seals more vulnerable because they don’t get 72 virgins?
    There were strong-willed Nazis just as there are strong-willed terrorists. They were devoted to a cause every bit as fervently suicide bombers. The 3rd Riech was their religion.
    Just because a guy is Islamic does not make a difference. Very, very, very shoddy thinking.
    The men you laud got what they needed without waterboarding. Who’s the better interrogator? Who is the more skilled?
    I wish the GOP would stop watching “24” long enough to think for a change. If the administration had spent more time reading history, heck, even Seven Pillars of Wisdom and some Kipling, we would still be engaged in Iraq, but at least we have managed it better, with less breakage.
    Be honest, I want to torture the heck out of those guys too. But don’t kid yourselves why, it’s because you want to punish, not because the information is any better.
    Our own military has been studying this since WW2, and they didn’t buy the idea that torture was more effective, but the policy changed because they were overridden by a bunch of Bush groupees who thought the biggest problem in invading Iraq was that we would run out of handcuffs when Saddam’s army surrendered.

  11. It’s difficult to make the case that we don’t torture when there are Americans who relish in re-enacting torture as a means of pleasure.
    “But that’s different” they’ll say because it’s ‘consensual’ and about ‘building trust’. Not it’s not, it’s about domination and submission which is what torture is all about.
    Just because it’s consensual doesn’t justify the glorification of torture, ie binding, taping, electrocuting genitila, hanging from the rafter then giving lashes, suffocation to near death, put collars on then make them get on the knees forcing them to eat fecal matter, shoving baseball bats and/ or fists up the anus etc etc you get the point.

  12. I grew up during the 60’s in a neighborhood, Collingwood, about 1 or 2 miles from Ft. Hunt. I have fond memories of exploring the fortifications. This was long before the NPS fixed the place up. We always thought it was just one of the many fortifications in the metropolitan area to protect Washington from a Soviet bomber attack.
    I noticed this intel group apparently only dealt with Nazi captives, no mention of Japanese. I know it was probably a bit more difficult to catch them alive but there must have been a few captured who might have had some valuable intel for us. I wonder if there was a similar secret group that we still know nothing about which was detailed with extracting intel from the Japanese. And if so, I wonder – given the rather different treatment that Japanese -Americans received from the Democratic FDR administration compared to German-Americans – whether more forceful techniques might have been employed by their interrogators. After all no one can accuse the Japanese of showing the least compunction of following the Geneva Convention towards our POWs or even civilians.

  13. Carole incorrectly said

    Because? Well, the current Pope joined the Nazi party.

    No pope (the current one included) ever joined the Nazi Party. He was required on his 14th birthday in 1941 to join the Hitler Youth, because, as of 1936, membership was compulsory for all children aged 10 and above (children between 10 and 14 were “informal members”).
    Carole is right about despotic laws. The law requiring membership was given teeth.

    A new law was issued on March 25, 1939, conscripting any remaining holdouts into the organization amid warnings to parents that their children would be taken from them and placed in orphanages unless they enrolled.

    The timeline of the above are important. Ratzinger did not join until he could legally be taken from his parents if he did not join. According to several sources (including the atheist coordinator on about.com [I can’t put more anchor tags in without the Captain canning my most]), Ratzinger’s family was forced to move four times due to their anti-Nazi beliefs. In fact, several commentators indicate that the young Ratzinger’s witnessing of the Catholic Church’s ill-treatment by the Nazis is the reason Pope Benedict is so strong in his defense of Catholic moral doctrine.

  14. docjim505 writes: “I’d take a terrorist’s two month old daughter apart with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch if I thought it would get him to talk.” First, there is lots of evidence that under severe torture, people say anything and everything that they think that their torturers (or their children’s torturers) will want to hear. Kahlid Sheik Mohammad apparently volunteered all manner of crap that turned out to be false or unverifiable while under “aggressive interrogation”. Second, what docjim505 so gracefully supresses is the fact that what he would most likely be doing is taking apart a SUSPECTED terrorist’s two month old daughter. Consider how many innnocent people have wound up on death row or executed before their innocence was determined. And those errors were made when there was no time pressure and when there was an open debate about the facts (ie. a jury trial open to the public). Finally, consider the impact of torture on the torturer. Unless we only employ sociopaths as torturers, folks who already are incapable of empathy with others, we almost guarantee that the people we obligate/permit to torture will be damaged for life. Whether or not your God consigns you to your Hell after your death, the odds are that you will need years of treatment to overcome the flashbacks and PTSD common to torturers. In short, whatever will come, you will have already experienced your share of hell here.

  15. a book detailing the entire Ft Hunt operation was published awhile back. can anyone help me find it again? thanks.

  16. Torture? During the Korean Conflict we interrogated captured Korean’s. After letting them sit in the compound a while, we’d belt them into a chair and hook them up to one of those old fashioned polygraph machines with pens using red ink, printing their body responses to our questions as the tape rolled past. They could see the pens wiggle. They’d heard “whispers” in the compound that it was their blood coming out of the pens.
    Was that torture? I still don’t know but it often shortened the time they sat in the chair.

  17. I see, the Nazis were civilized cuz they’re white, amirite?
    What? WWII vets don’t approve of Bush? Gotta find a logical twisteroo to remain in denial! Maybe the WWII vets don’t understand that the Nazis were pussies? Nothing to do with the dangerous armada of 20 guys with box cutters who are infiltratting our society.
    All those Republican homos playing footsie in the bathroom? Yep, Muslim spies!

  18. Six months? Try six hours.
    We can’t question the patriotism of the NYT’s editorial board. We can’t question something that does not exist.
    If we treated them the way they truly deserve, they’d be facing a firing squad.

  19. I’ve seen no significant use of the Geneva Convention except as a tool by Communists to tie American hands behind their backs while the brutal dictators of the world hammer us to death at their whim, with ANYTHING that comes to hand.
    If it is a question of America’s survival, do it.
    We have the right to defend ourselves, and when it comes time to do that, I remember what John Wayne said in one of the movies he made. He told the other guy not to let an apology between them bother him any as far as what they did to settle their differences later, after the battle they were allies together to fight, because when HE decided to go after someone, it wasn’t going to be the Marquis of Queensbury Rules. He didn’t care if it was from behind or below the belt or anything else – just whatever it took to get the job done.
    If you are fighting in a contest – rules are great.
    If you are fighting for something worth saving, do what it takes – your enemy certainly is.
    Because if you think it is better to die with a false sense of honor, having lost the family and community you were supposedly fighting to save, than to fight dirty and save the community, and maybe live over with with some things on your conscience the rest of your lives, you aren’t ready to live on this planet, anyway.
    If you expect those fighting FOR YOU, WITHOUT YOUR ASSISTANCE, to play pattycake with their hands tied behind their backs, so the ones trying to cut your family to pieces with ball bearings, or piano wire in rape rooms, can always remember you as “NICE PEOPLE”, then the guys fighting for you with their lives have made a stupid bloody blunder.
    Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved. – Niccolo Machiavelli
    If nothing in America of who she really is, is worth retaining, then by all means, hoist thyself upon thine own petard with all due haste. Let her mortal enemies have their way in destroying her.

  20. As far as I am concerned, the Press and Media that leak stories whether small portions of American citizens deem them “appropriate” or not, but still UNDERMINE OUR EFFORTS TO WIN THIS WAR AS QUICKLY AND CLEANLY AND EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE with the least damage to America, they are committing WAR-TIME TREASON, and if the Liberals are going to continue barking about it, it NEEDS A VOTE ACROSS THE NATION to settle the issue and establish CLEAR GUIDELINES to the MEDIA.
    I think about 3 different sides should be able to put various different wordings to the policy and let THE PEOPLE vote on it.
    But for my bucks, when the Defense Department and White House don’t make a JOINT APPROVED STATEMENT, it is ILLEGITIMATE INFORMATION for the Press – short of armed insurgency by the Military.
    But SLANDEROUS INSURGENCY by the MEDIA AND LIBERALS AND LIBERAL POLITICIANS is also TREASON, TOO!

  21. These squawking Liberals are the same folks who throw marbles under police horse hooves at their demonstrations. They will throw acid or urine inthe eyes of police at their protests. They will make death threats on GUEST SPEAKERS until a speaking engagement is shut down. They spit on our military, our police, our citizens who are not in agreement with them, aqnd hurl filthy invectives at them, and other objects, as well – unless they are physically outnumbered. They will find the AIDS-INFECTED among them to bite the police and the EMS and firemen. They will set fires. They desecrate our monuments. They break windows and spray threatening grafitti at the homes and business of their political opponents. They spray nazi symbols in the yards and on the homes of military spouses when they read that the person has died in combat.
    They think free speech is BURNING THE AMERICAN FLAG and flying other nations’ flags, and registering felons and cemetaries and illegal aliens to vote, and registering all who are willing for multiple voting cards.
    They will smash and burn and destroy and loot as a “legitimate part” of their protests, even if it kills people.
    Knowing what all such as Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein have done to innocnet civilians, they will go over there and be HUMAN SHIELDS for them, and travel to foreign lands to kiss their brutal dictators on the mouth for the international cameras.
    And they are telling us not to even DETAIN our enemy combatants, much less hold them incommunicado and try to extract information from them?
    And that what they are doing, themselves IS NOT TREASON???
    They are certainly torturing Americans.
    I say, put George Washington, Paul Revere, Nathan Hale, Patrick Henry, Francis Scott Key, James Otis, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Benjamin Rush, et al, shall be the JURISTS for that definition of Treason!
    Because these Liberals haven’t proven themselves able to determine a single solitary CONSTRUCTIVE THING to help PRESERVE the NATION OR THE FLAG!
    They have proven themselves capable of NOTHING but concocting pure ANARCHY!

  22. Didn’t James Risen mention that KSM was told that his wife and children were going to be killed if he didn’t cooperate and he basically told them, “Go ahead, they’ll be better off where they will be going then here.” He called their bluff, and what did we get? The whole we’re Nuclear and we torture thing has just inspired more rouge nations than deterred them. It’s like OPEC and Scar Face put together. Who’s going to tell Egypt, torture resort deluxe, they can’t have the A-bomb? This one upmanship on brutal behavior just lowers the civility standard. If we firmly believe that our enemies want to return us all to the 1500s, do we really have to assume that era’s morals to defeat their mission? Is this whole argument all about someone who has died while being interrogated? That’s the problem with this administration they do what they want in the name of Nat’l security allowing the President unfettered power. So if you agree the President has this authority, can you all honestly say that you’d be willing to give the Mrs. this same authority?

  23. It is not unusual for older people to appose almost any war on principle, but I am 56 years old and I grew up hearing stories about WW2 that would curl people’s hair today.
    Fire bombings, nukes, death camps, detentions of American citizens, bugging phones, shooting spies without any kind of trial, the execution of unarmed enemy soldiers, not taking prisoners, and that was our side.
    But I am supposed to believe that because some old boy was able to get some German scientist to talk by buying him a steak that the Bush administration could do the same with stone cold terrorists trained to withstand interrogation techniques?
    BTW, I hear they are reading Harry Potter novels to the guys at Gitmo. The report I read some time ago says that they get hooked on the stories and then want to hear more. Maybe that is what we do instead of buying them red meat.

  24. I wonder what kind of interrogation police forces in this country were using back then in the days before they even had to read people their rights.
    Nah, I don’t believe it was a kinder gentler form of interrogation by authority.

  25. Technically the never did violate the Geneva Convention. The one that get thrown around so much is the 2nd convetion of 1949 that we abide by today.

  26. Are they really terrorists? Ah, now, there’s there rub.
    No one in Gitmo’s ever been tried in a court o’ law, now has he? Had the opportunity to face his accusers and question the evidence against him? Been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?
    No, I don’t think so. And so, since you cannot know if any given individual in detention is a “terrorist,” what you advocate is using torture against an innocent man.
    “They did it,” or “they do it,” or “FDR did it,” or “it was only a few” or any other equivocation does not change this one fact– you advocate punishment for someone that you cannot know is guilty.
    It would seem that conservatives would rather torture/execute/imprison a hundred innocent men than let one guilty one go free.
    Renko

  27. I don’t buy your argument, Captain. Knowing the horrific atrocities the German and Japanese armies perpetrated and the completely open warfare that touched so much of the air, land, and seas, to say that this enemy is significantly different is hogwash. So there is a religious nut element this time and some fighters want to kill themselves and take out as many of the enemy as possible? Um, what the hell were kamakazis? How deified were Hitler and Hirohito? How mixed together was this cult-like worship of leaders and religious destiny of homeland that they sold to their soldiers and public? The whole argument is also weakened by interrogation experts who claim that persistent, well organized interrogation that aims to gain confidence produces far more accurate information. Which is what these WWII vets did. And they did it in a war where the stakes were global.

  28. Renko:
    That is so lame. Gitmo has got to be the most watched, talked about, studied, questioned, prison on the planet. If these guys had been hauled off to some jail in Yemen or someplace they could rot and no one would give a damn.
    Now, we have had courts involved to decide exactly how to try them, where to try them, under what circumstances to try them, they have visitors, spiritual advisers, legal advisers and people like yourself all a twitter that their rights might have been violated.
    I tell you what, let’s send the ones from China back home. Oh but then the Chinese have made it pretty plain these guys will meet an untimely end if we do something like that. So what to do? We know after all that the Chinese could shoot them as soon as they get off a plane and folks like you would not make a peep.
    You are a hypocrite.
    There is no evidence that these people have been tortured.
    And you know what? It seems liberals would rather see terrorists kill thousands of people than do a thing to protect the innocent.

  29. Okon:
    These old guys were talking about German scientists, not Kamikazes. Tell me, do you think offering a steak dinner to a guy trained to slam a plane into an aircraft carrier would have had any effect on him.
    The Islamists we deal with here have been trained to withstand certain interrogation techniques and I will tell you the truth, I do not doubt that there were times when certain measures were used in the war that this particular group of men were not involved in.
    The idea that the US is torturing everyone they pick up is a fantasy. There is no evidence of it at all.
    It is just a meme that came about because of the liberals knew that with Abu Ghraib and Gitmo they could get a little mileage out of it. As for the government, it is like asking them when they stopped beating their wives, there is no way for them to defend against even the most bogus claims.
    Time and again the NYT or some other media outfit will come out with some breathless tale of torture, only to find out later that it was exaggerated or an outright lie.
    Now, I for one do not consider sleep deprivation or keeping the room at 50 to be torture.

  30. Torture seldom produces the desired results.
    However, fear of torture does produce desired results. Fear of pain, injury or death produces results.
    A few decades ago, when dealing with Soviets captured by the Mujahadin in Afghanistan, we dealt with, in one case in particular, a small group of captured Soviet NCO’s and junior officers. They mostly willingly gave a good bit of information right up front, being very happy to be out of Afghanistan and out of MUjahadinn hands, and in most cases out of Soviet Army hands, some going to the extent without prompting of producing extremely accurate drawings of Soviet faciltiies across Afghanistan [later verified through imagery and other means] and providing highly detailed OB and other unit specific information without prompting, but there was one of them who seemed to be the “leader” of the group who just didn’t want to share anything with us.
    From the others, we found that he was a spetznaz type, a warrant officer, and had been a Soviet Army careerist prior to his capture. They were all draftees, and disliked the Soviet Army and being in Afghanistan, so they were a more pliable group once they knew that we had them and they were not going back to the USSR or Afghanistan.
    Rather than subject this warrant officer careeerist to any enhanced means, we tried something different.
    We treated him better than the rest. [Everything they all received was well in accordance with Geneva and Hague.] But we gave him more cigarettes, coffee, tea, candy, even porn, escorted trips on the outside, and offered him other perks, made his life, compared to the rest, a lot better. We also made it clear to the others that he was being given far superior treatment.
    One afternoon he showed up for an interview with fear in his eyes, and a deep willingness to be forthcoming in every question asked and more. Why the sudden change in his attitude?
    His fellow Soviets had decided that he was doing “something” that got him special treatment, perhaps even making deals with us at their expense, since they received no similar special perks and goodies.
    The others confronted him and threatened him. They were going to beat him to death unless he provided them a good reason for his better treatment. He could give no reason. We never gave him one. They made it clear that they believed the only reason they had not been granted asylum, or immediate movement to a friendly country, and freedom, was because of him. In their minds they beleived that he was doing something special to be given something special.
    In fear of his fellows more than us, he “cracked” and started talking, talking a lot, and when given a legal pads, he proceeded to write down everything he knew, or had encountered, no matter how small or insignificant, from his entry into the Soviet Army, to his training in spetznaz to his deployment to Afghanistan, included bios on officers, commanders, details of equipment, morale, training, unit designations, locations, logistics and everything in the world he could remember. We never laid a hand on him. His only demand was that he be separated from the others and that the others be allowed the same sort of special treatment we had given him. [They were, and were also moved to a friendly country soonest, and freedom.]
    His fear of being “taken care of” harshly by his compatriots was his motivation for cooperation. [In the long run, everything he provided was proved to be accurate and detailed.]
    The point?
    If a captee understands that he will not face anything other than the discomfort of being away from home, offered three hot meals a day, good living conditions, et al., he will most often design his interaction with the interogator accordingly. If he is going to talk, he will. If he is going to hold out and not be cooperative, he will.
    In some cases simply being captured and removed from the harsh combat environment and total control of his leadership is sufficient to get the captee on board.
    However, if he is hard core, and has the slightest idea that his lack of cooperation will result in nothing at all, he will react accordingly.
    If he is of a mind initially to not cooperate, but in fear of his physical discomfort or worse, being tortured, for example, having his worst fears come true, he will likewise cooperate accordingly, usually in the form of solid cooperation. Or, as in the case of this Soviet spetznaz warrant officer, the fear of his compatriots taking matters in their own hands was sufficient to have him answer the Call to Jesus.
    In most cases, a good interogator can disarm, charm, and cajole a captee into cooperation. Good interrogators are hard to find, but we have dozens and dozens of seasoned vets who know more about psychology than most who are working daily in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Gitmo, and elsewhere.
    For a hard core captee however, the latent but pervasive fear of finding himself strapped to a board and being treated as his own security services would treat one of us can often lead to cooperation in full. The fear of physical pain or being beaten or torutred, even by his own kind, while we stand aside and let it happen, is a huge motivator.
    Having a high value hard core captee know from the start that absolutely nothing will happen to him does no good at all, really, if he knows that his lack of cooperation will cost him nothing.
    We don’t have to torture, really, but having that bit of technique in our arsenal and made clearly known to a captee allows for the captee’s own mind to work against him and work in favor of us.
    Take the threat of torture out of the equation publicly, make it a matter of open discussion and its prohibition a matter of open public law…and we remove a vital tool from our arsenal.
    In more recent years, in discussions with a few who recently or are presently involved in interviewing captees from the GWOT, most captees are cooperative for a pretty good reason. They are treated well, a lot better than they would treat us, and this destruction of their fundamental beliefs in who we are and how we act vis-a-vis the captee, shatters them to the core. If their leaders lied about something as simple as how we would treat them when captured…like being tortured or murdered as soon as they are captured…it shakes their beliefs in a lot more…their own cause. A few captees in recent years started talking as soon as they came out of anethesia, and having their wounds treated by our medical teams and field hospitals. That we would treat them so humanely in light of their trying to kill us was sufficient to break them.
    But for the hard core? Allow us the opportunity to let their worst fears work against them and in favor of us. We don’t have to lay a hand on them. They can do that in their own minds, and confront their own worst fears. That is where the nexus of “threat of torture” and firm cooperation happens.
    I do not advocate the wholesale use of torture or enhanced techniques, not at all. I stand by the belief that torture simply does not provide the desired results. But for the complete removal of this item from our arsenal…well, it seems shortsighted. Fear is and has always been a simple motivator. Why remove our ability to use fear as a motivator?

  31. What I think we should do is get the video tapes that Saddam susposedly made of torture sessions and make congress and the news media watch them. No cameras so there would be no way the media could broadcast it or any chance a child could see it.
    I think that would clarify for congress and the media just exactly what torture is; and also, what it is not.
    Of course, most would say that making someone watch somebody be put through a plastic shredder would be torture in and of itself.

  32. That’s okay, unclesmrgol, once General Patton crossed the Rhine, it became obious germany was no longer overrun with nazi’s. Most people hid. And, some hid in shame.
    With the biggest worry going to those that saw the russians coming! (This was something Eisenhower did!)
    ANd the russians were known to be rapists and goons.
    Heck, all you had to do was know that stalin ran short of issuing army equipment. SO every pair of boots, on every sets of feet, came from some dead body. Somewhere else.
    And, then? Well, the germans really, really got it! Because half of germany, and all of eastern europe, became a “block” that lost freedom. Lost treasure. As moscow absconded with everything.
    And, ya know what?
    My sympathy button just isn’t there.
    I figured, for Patton? It was just gonna be a parade. SO, he missed it.
    But for the goons who really like to “do wars?” It beat Versaille by miles and miles. ANd, it left a boot print that’s still pretty obvious on the europeans.
    Probably why so many have thrown in with the musselmen. Because they got robbed blind by the “big, bad, bear.”
    Sometimes, when I read THE BIG PHARAOH, he comments about what the russians did to Cairo. Hard to believe that once is was a beautiful city. But now? People live in something worse than “track homes!” They live in the prisons, built out of cement. Without much character. Plopped their by the russians.
    And, ya know what? This crap actually teaches lessons!
    While the bullshit from the fascists in the elite media … are growing old.
    One day? They fall down and they can’t get up.
    While the Internet makes a solid case for itself.
    WHere the bullshit from the media doesn’t really stick. We’ve “out”spun their stinking news cycles.
    And, we’re doing it 24/7.
    Nobody’s ever gonna get the milk to go back into the broken bottle.
    And, wherever you look at wars, in general, it’s when the “plans” fall out that the “other side,” benefits.
    Don’t remember where. Or when. But I have a feeling that in the bleak days of the Civil War; Robert E. Lee wrapped some plans around a cigar. Alas, that cigar (found), is no longer as famous as the one clinton used … or Monica found? While the Oval Office got a “little bit stained.
    I remind you of this, only so that you can “compare.” You’re safely at home. But still? It happened.
    OH. And, just to sail off topic. I want to repeat. When Larry Craig’s left hand ALSO made it to the wall of the stall … HE WAS ABOUT TO CRAWL THROUGH!
    See? When you’re trained … as the police are … to stop the “traffic” into men’s toilets … you can know what’s gonna follow … Once the signalling has begun.
    Put two and two together. You rarely get a duck.

  33. Andrew Sullivan had a great quote from George Washington on his site today:
    “Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner] … I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country,” – George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775.

  34. Teresa the actual quote reads:
    “Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any CANADIAN or INDIAN in his person or property… I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country,”

  35. renko – with a few exceptions the gitmo detainees have been captured during military operations engaged in combat against U.S. forces. they have no legal right to access the U.S. justice system.

  36. I should have added Washington’s comments pertained to non-combatants..
    Not those found on battlefields etc..
    Remember too… Just as the Geneva convention allows those found out of uniform can be tried and executed as spies… the same applied during Washington’s time… and if we wanted to use the letter of the law as provided by the GC we could have sought to execute everyone one found on the field of battle out of uniform..
    And we didn’t and haven’t

  37. RE: Teresa (October 6, 2007 6:45 PM)
    “Andrew Sullivan had a great quote from George Washington on his site today…”
    With the caveats addressed by theblacksheepwasright and all reverent respect to Washington, we aren’t talking about the acquisition of knowledge to prevent some gunpowder from going off. We’re talking about extreme exceptions of urgency whereby the payload is up to and including nuclear or biological catastrophe. That naive quote is void of the context of the firepower available to destroy states, something no one could have envisioned way back when.
    You’d think Sullivan could work some of that kind of subtlety into the debate… if he was being honest. Perhaps he did.

  38. AnonymousDrivel says, ” We’re talking about extreme exceptions of urgency whereby the payload is up to and including nuclear or biological catastrophe.”
    ————————
    It would be really nice if y’all would realize that “24” is fictional and not a documentary.

  39. I don’t put much stock in the old geezers ‘memory’. After all MIT is located in the state known for producing the biggest liars in the world.

  40. So the end is justified by the means – the more extreme the threat – the more like our enemies we are allowed to become.
    Morals don’t matter. There’s no right and wrong, just our team and theirs. (end of sarcasm)
    At any rate:
    I have had 2 beefs with the Administration on this all along:
    1- Coldwarrior has excellent analysis of effective use of fear to break people. I question whether it is necessary (is it the only way that works?), but OK, we can differ.
    My first problem (call it the “policy” argument) was that the carefully defined standards our troops knew to obey were tossed away without a clear standard to replace them. Some enlisted folks got caught up in the Abu Ghraib deal because no one told them where the lines were that they weren’t supposed to cross. All they knew was that “the book” didn’t apply and there were new rules. What were the rules? They found them ’cause they broke them.
    “Policy” argues that was a disservice to the troops – it sets them up as sacrificial goats when indictment time rolls around, because all the way up the chain no one authorized the troops to behave that way. Didn’t anyone notice the only reason it stopped was that some pictures went public?
    That is an effing idiotic irresponsible and way to run something as important as intelligence gathering. It’s disloyal to the troops. Moreover, it was counterproductive – some petty thieves were turned into suicide bombers, and we created a lot of ill will and added instability in-country. Plus, if there are effective and ineffective methods to interrogate people, then don’t we want to limit who does that sort of thing to people who know what they are doing?
    2- My other beef is related to morals but is not a moral issue (call it “right makes might”). We are engaged in nation building – with the goal of a stable strategic ally.
    To do that, we have to destroy the culture that has been breeding terrorism. To do that, we have to present an appealing alternative.
    “Right makes might” says that the long term path to stability is getting Arabs and Persians alike to adopt Western values. The more we adopt brutal methods, the less difference they can see between our culture and theirs.
    Practical example of this in action: all Iraqis in trouble prefer to go to Americans for help. Why? Because the Americans will be fair and won’t be corrupt, and THEY AREN’T AFRAID TO TRUST US. A clear sign of trust in a foreign culture – a door opening for change.
    They have plenty of reasons to fear and mistrust us already (not to mention a deep-seated inferiority complex – how many battles against the West have they won since the Crusades ended?).
    Is being perceived as cruel or bestial or malevolent so effective as to be worth the long term cost of extending this war?
    To paraphrase Heinlein: don’t frighten little people, because they will try to kill you. People who are afraid act to remove the source of the fear.
    Summing up: Brutality begets brutality. Torture Adib today and Son of Adib will do something evil tomorrow. So long as they hate and fear us we are targets and the war on terror will go on.
    Or would you rather we adopt a final solution?
    After all, we know genocide will work.

  41. RE: Teresa (ctober 6, 2007 8:09 PM)
    “It would be really nice if y’all would realize that “24” is fictional and not a documentary.”
    Never seen the show.
    Of course, some might have written a script about a handful of terrorists taking down skyscrapers and the world’s most consequential military structure with boxcutters before 9/11 and we’d have scoffed at its inconceivability. Only it was
    so inconceivable that the creative minds of Hollywood couldn’t even envision that.
    Yes, preposterous. What was I thinking?

  42. OldDeadMeat and ColdWarrior make some very good points.
    This post reminds me of the initial response coming from ex-military officers interviewed immediately after 9/11. Their assessment was that the new war against global terrorism would not be won through conventional military forces- the same forces arrayed against the USSR during the Cold War. Instead, US military men believed that this war would be won by winning the hearts and minds of civilians- those who gave material, recruits, and other support to the terrorist networks.
    In fact, this vision played out in Anbar Province. There was no sign that the military could ever have turned the situation around in that area, if not for the transformation in the hearts and minds of local Iraqis.
    Isn’t a valid question to ask- how does torture affect the larger war against terrorism and our ability to win over the populations of Muslim countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia?
    Unlike the Waffen SS and our Japenese enemies, many terrorist recruits have been brainwashed. Pakistani and other intelligence sources tell us this, and some Muslim countries have been very successful by not torturing captives, but instead de-programming them. Turning a terrorist to your side yields far better intelligence than any kind of torture.

  43. That is so lame. Gitmo has got to be the most watched, talked about, studied, questioned, prison on the planet. If these guys had been hauled off to some jail in Yemen or someplace they could rot and no one would give a damn.

    And so you reinforce my point.
    “The Yemenis do it!” “The Chinese do it!”
    Spasiba.

  44. with a few exceptions the gitmo detainees have been captured during military operations engaged in combat against U.S. forces. they have no legal right to access the U.S. justice system.

    1. And how many “exceptions” is acceptable?
    2. No right to the US justice system, nor to the Geneva Convention, nor to any other form of redress, it would appear.
    So, how many innocent men are you ready to sacrifice to the Gulag, comrade?
    Renko

  45. RE: bayam (October 6, 2007 8:49 PM)
    “Isn’t a valid question to ask- how does torture affect the larger war against terrorism and our ability to win over the populations of Muslim countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia?”
    Absolutely, it’s wholly responsible, and I agree. The question, however, ultimately proceeds down the slippery slope to the extreme, namely, exactly how far is one willing to go under those exceptional cases. Surely we all abhor real torture as a routine measure, but that’s really not what we’re talking about, is it?
    I’m for whatever works to whatever degree necessary. If whispering sweet nothings will work to improve intel gathering, I’m for it. If something, if up to and almost anything, more extreme is required, I’m for it. And as coldwarrior415 so insightfully expressed, one never reveals to the nth degree what you will or will not do to extract that information. Its release can only aid our enemies as their fear is ameliorated by knowledge. Fear of the unknown is a powerful motivator, so making everything known is counterproductive, too. Surely that’s important in our ethical calculus of the larger war.

  46. One last comment and to bed:
    It has been good to see some commenters thinking before writing. Would that everyone would do so.
    Regards to all,
    ODM

  47. renko, such an uninformed reply!! gulag?? you are likening gitmo to a gulag?? better do some reading. it shows just how un-serious the left side is when you compare gitmo to a gulag. you arent based in reality when you say things like that.
    im not sure how many, KSM is the only one i know for sure. and yes, no right to U.S. legal system, if you disagree explain jurisdiction? as for geneva, read what it allows for unlawful combatants. and the tribunals have cleared plenty but they cant be released cause their home countries nor any other will accept them. so they stay in what you seem to think is a gulag for the time being

  48. My apologies — I read about 30-something of the comments but not all.
    Ed, I don’t really see how this post is about ‘interrogation history.’ You point to an article that was current on memeorandum, but then your own writing is nothing new. Is that what you meant by ‘history’?
    Off the top of my head, I would recommend Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People by John Conroy and/or A Question of Torture by Alfred W. McCoy. While you may disagree with their politics or orientation wrt the usefulness of torture or continue to claim that ours is a unique situation in history, I’d posit that what these two writers have documented that it is clear you are on unstable, if not completely non-existant logical ground here. The threat you perceive as unique differs little from the unique threat in other situations. The long history of torture and threat makes it clear that each threatened group believes its circumstances are monumental.
    The men of PO Box 1142 at the very least were able to live their lives knowing that they were humane to their enemies. That has not been the case for our men and women in Iraq. They live with overwhelming regret and guilt or commit suicide. (Links are redily available with a simple search, but I will gladly look them up if there is any question.)
    An alternative has not been tried in this conflict. Why not?

  49. How many witches did they find at the Salem Witch Trials? None as far as I know.
    How many people confessed under torture? Dozens
    Why? Because under torture, people implicate innocent bystanders. And prosecutors encourage this to further their careers or for personal profit.
    Most people tortured are innocent, and wholesale death follows.
    So to say that torture is OK is to also say that we are willing to abduct and murder large numbers of innocent people.

  50. It would seem that conservatives would rather torture/execute/imprison a hundred innocent men than let one guilty one go free.
    Renko
    ****************
    And are you aware of just what is the count, now, of GITMO prisoners set free who have bee n RECAUGHT or killed ON THE BATTLEFIELD, since they were released according to DIM demands???
    I think you should look up those facts before you spout off a lot if ill-informed nonsense.

  51. For all the talk about torture, what “torture” was actuallly done at Guantanamo. Even if youstate that waterboarding is in fact torture, which I disagree with, were all prisoners routinely waterboarded in interrogations in Guantanamo or was it reserved for the most egregious or extreme cases, ie. the Khaleid Sheik Muhhameds etc.
    and how many times was it done and under what circumstances?
    Also lets please define torture. Is harsh language torture, is making someone uncomfortorable torture, is using a female interrogator on a jihadist torture. Andrew Sullivan in particular is guilty of equating everything to torture which amounts to a blanket smear, as in a war zone it will be required to interrogate prisoners and if every interrogation method employed is akin to torture, then those who even interrogate will always be gulty of torture.
    Also, if we’re going to talk about WWII, and the conduct of the war, correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that the war that we interned the japanese, isn’t that the war that we actually nuked Hiroshima? And we dind’t lose our souls then did we? So can’t get that worked up that someone got a panty on their head of slapped in the face, or even waterboarded, considering what other courses of actions could be taken and have been taken in war time and which haven’t been employed in this war.
    If it comes out that we’re torturing people in the fashion of Al Qaeda tortures people, or even in the fashion of how Sadaam tortured his prisoners (ie chopping out tongues, throwing off buildings, chopping off hands,throwing in shredders) I will certainly stand with the anti torture crowd and condemn such acts.
    But I can’t condemn interrogations, even harsh interrogations whose intent is to save lives, through the gathering of info. By the same token, I don’t hold it against a doctor if he were to have to slice someone open to get at a tumor, but Iwould hold it against someone if they were to slice someone open simply to inflict pain (ie Jack the RIpper). Without context both are commiting the same exact act.
    It’s not exactly a fair comparison because though our soldiers are getting smeared with the torture label, they are not in fact torturing people, so its not equivalent. I direct anyone including Dick Durbin and Ted Kennedy who suggested that Abu Ghraib was opened under new management or suggested that soldiers were acting in the same manner as Pol Pot, check out the readily available videos online that show the various means of torture used by Sadaam and believe me they make things like water boarding and a slap in the head look like a trip to the movies in comparison.

  52. I’m for whatever works to whatever degree necessary. If whispering sweet nothings will work to improve intel gathering, I’m for it.
    Something like this is what has been proven to work best. However, there is no evidence that the current administration has tried this technique.
    If something, if up to and almost anything, more extreme is required, I’m for it.
    In South Africa, the government had medical doctors onhand to revive those unfortunates that died during interrogation. Would that be ok with you?
    And as coldwarrior415 so insightfully expressed, one never reveals to the nth degree what you will or will not do to extract that information.
    This point also makes the ‘We use it to train our Navy SEALs and other commando units’ point nonsense. They know — no matter how dramatic the senario — that they will not die — unless someone screws up. What are the odds of that? The enemy doesn’t have that thought to support his/her will.
    Its release can only aid our enemies as their fear is ameliorated by knowledge. Fear of the unknown is a powerful motivator, so making everything known is counterproductive, too.
    That’s not how it worked in South Africa, Algeria, Argentina, Chile, Peru, El Salvador, the former Soviet Union, shall I go on? Myanmar today?
    Surely that’s important in our ethical calculus of the larger war.
    My response to this last point might get me booted off Ed’s blog before I have even gotten started, so I will refrain for now.

  53. And are you aware of just what is the count, now, of GITMO prisoners set free who have bee n RECAUGHT or killed ON THE BATTLEFIELD, since they were released according to DIM demands???
    Under 20.

  54. AnonymousDrivel — …a handful of terrorists taking down skyscrapers and the world’s most consequential military structure with boxcutters before 9/11…
    ————————
    Exactly my point. The hyperbole about some terrorist holding on to a ticking nuclear bomb is pretty unrealistic.

  55. “It would be really nice if y’all would realize that “24” is fictional and not a documentary.”
    Never seen the show.

    I have seen the show.
    When Jack Bauer (oh, feel the power in that Name!) tortures someone, he’s usually right. Right enough to put his ass on the line, because what he does, in a rational world, is. not. legal.
    He does the illegal thing, then effectively turns himself in, with a complete after-action report.
    I think it pretty obvious that since he’s always right about who to torture, when to torture him, and always gets it done in time to defuse the ticking bomb– well, Jack’s pretty well assured of a Presidential pardon for all his heinous deeds.
    They’re still illegal.
    So, to answer the ever-asked “ticking bomb” question, what do you do?
    If you’re the agent(Agent Bauer… whoooah, powerful) on the scene, and you decide that torturing someone is absolutely necessary to save the school from exploding, then do it.
    But you’d bloody well better be right.
    Because if you just tortured some poor sorry bastard because he had a hooked nose and an olive complexion, you should be sitting over there at the defendant’s table.
    But in this Year of Our Lord 2007, it is better to torture a hundred innocent men than for a single guilty man to go free; and the torturer is just another government employee.
    Renko

  56. Also lets please define torture.
    It has been well defined for quite some time. The trouble now is that the Bush Administration has been fiddling with it these past few years. Ask Ed about that book he’s going to read. Perhaps it will show how the CIA has gone all soft since Clinton. I don’t know.
    Also, those who have participated in the torture that the Bush Administration has allowed, have serious regrets, are in prison, or have commited suicide. Does that work for you? It’s easy to advocate something, yet another to do it, and yet more to justify it after the fact.
    So can’t get that worked up that someone got a panty on their head of slapped in the face, or even waterboarded, considering what other courses of actions could be taken and have been taken in war time and which haven’t been employed in this war.
    You are conflating wrongs against groups of people with wrongs against individuals. Our government acts for all of us, whether we agree or not. I should stop here. You clearly cannot think beyond your self interest.

  57. actually the DoD thinks its 30. and thats just the ones they know of.
    So, I’m off by 10 and not 100. Good to know.

  58. renko, such an uninformed reply!! gulag?? you are likening gitmo to a gulag?? better do some reading. it shows just how un-serious the left side is when you compare gitmo to a gulag. you arent based in reality when you say things like that.

    Are you under the impression that the “gulag-ness” of a policy is determined by the size of the “gulag” in question?
    Or is it determined by the fact that human beings are detained against their will, abused at the least and tortured or executed at worst all without any sort of recourse to any authority, unable to confront their accusers or even see the evidence against them?
    Pray tell, how many prisoners must a gulag have to be a gulag?
    Renko

  59. So if you agree the President has this authority, can you all honestly say that you’d be willing to give the Mrs. this same authority?
    ***********************
    Remembering CHINAGATE – HELL NO!
    But then, given CHINAGATE – the LIBERALS are PROUD to run her or HANOI JOHN as a CANDIDATE for the highest office in the world, BECAUSE FOR THEM, CHARACTER DOES NOT MATTER.
    Becasue, afterall, the Liberals are the party of NO INTEGRITY.
    THEY are the ones who claim that PERSONAL INTEGRITY AND CHARACTER doesn’t matter.
    But we on the CONSERVATIVE SIDE want men of integrity in that office, so that in times of war, when things get tough, OURS WHO FIGHT FOR US can get plenty tougher. WITH NO IDIOT SEDITIONISTS TYING THEIR HANDS BEHIND THEIR BACKS with FALSE “MANNERS” and contrivances designed to give the advantage to our enemies.
    * * * * *
    How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!
    – Samuel Adams
    Samuel Adams:
    If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.
    John Adams – Be not intimidated… nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.
    **********************
    Communist Goals (1963)
    Congressional Record–Appendix, pp. A34-A35
    January 10, 1963


    3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

    13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

    16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

  60. And are you aware of just what is the count, now, of GITMO prisoners set free who have bee n RECAUGHT or killed ON THE BATTLEFIELD, since they were released according to DIM demands???
    I think you should look up those facts before you spout off a lot if ill-informed nonsense.

    Easily done.
    A very credible reference, your Vice President. Tell me, how is that nice fellow he shot in the face? Oh, and by the way– where is that pesky WMD?
    Renko

  61. Rose, are you worried over 30 people?
    Wait — I have the answer to my own question!
    Wow Ed — you let this into your comments? Whodathunkit?
    Communist Goals (1963)
    Congressional Record–Appendix, pp. A34-A35
    January 10, 1963

    Rose, sweetie, that dribble was read into the record. Do you know what that means, sweetie? It’s not law; it’s not fact; it’s not the rule. It’s just one person paying one member of congress enough money to allow someone to read something into the record. Rose, had you enough money and personal panache, you could get your local congressperson to read the following into the Congressional record:

    I am Rose. Hear me roar!

    I question the quality.

  62. 16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
    May I presume then, that it is the conservative position that civil rights weaken basic American institutions?
    Renko

  63. Posted by OPeck | October 6, 2007 6:02 PM
    What I think we should do is get the video tapes that Saddam susposedly made of torture sessions and make congress and the news media watch them. No cameras so there would be no way the media could broadcast it or any chance a child could see it.
    I think that would clarify for congress and the media just exactly what torture is; and also, what it is not.
    Of course, most would say that making someone watch somebody be put through a plastic shredder would be torture in and of itself.
    ******************
    Be careful, the Liberals among them will think you are merely hosting an S&M Festival, like Folson Street Parade sponsored by Miller Beer. (ref: Michelle Malkin)

  64. i dont know where size entered into the equation. remember, size doesnt matter!!
    do you really believe these detainees are experienceing gulag like conditions? they are receiving more medical treatment and food then at any time in their lives. and the respect given to their religious beleifs borders on absurd! ask solzhenitsyn if he thinks gitmo compares to a gulag. bottom line is gitmo aint no gulag and aint nowhere close.

  65. Be careful, the Liberals among them will think you are merely hosting an S&M Festival, like Folson Street Parade sponsored by Miller Beer. (ref: Michelle Malkin)
    Rose, can I ask you one question?
    Are you a regular commenter here?
    Seriously, I’m just asking.

  66. RE: incontralados (October 6, 2007 9:39 PM)
    “Something like this [sweet nothings] is what has been proven to work best. However, there is no evidence that the current administration has tried this technique.”
    Nice contradiction. Intel has been gathered yet you are sure that it has all been acquired by torture all of a nasty sort? Since nasty doesn’t work, or at least doesn’t work well, and the administration hasn’t tried softer methods, how is progress being made? Let’s just say I don’t trust your perception of what has been or what has not been tried.
    “In South Africa, the government had medical doctors onhand to revive those unfortunates that died during interrogation. Would that be ok with you?”
    Well I wouldn’t be doing cartwheels during the process but, yes, with the right person and the right circumstances, an exceptional method is OK with me if it can avert catastrophe. Interesting your moral equivalence of South Africa’s situation with our own. Were the South Africans interrogating known mass assassins like Khalid SM or Al-Zarqawi?
    “This point also makes the ‘We use it to train our Navy SEALs and other commando units’ point nonsense. They know — no matter how dramatic the senario — that they will not die — unless someone screws up. What are the odds of that? The enemy doesn’t have that thought to support his/her will.”
    As I understand it, waterboarding works on both captives (see KSM) and SEALs regardless of preparation, so knowing (even after practice) one won’t suffocate/drown is not enough of a pacifier to ward off physiological response. The mind cannot overcome the body’s endocrinology/biology. However, why declare the upper limit of what one will or won’t do, which was my main point from coldwarrior415? The threat of something else unknown, whether practiced or not, may be enough of a motivator.
    “That’s not how it worked in South Africa, Algeria, Argentina, Chile, Peru, El Salvador, the former Soviet Union, shall I go on?…”
    Yes, elaborate please.

  67. c’mo renko, work on the reading comprehension. first you somehow think i believe a gulag is defined by size and now you post this?

    16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
    May I presume then, that it is the conservative position that civil rights weaken basic American institutions?
    Renko

    notice the word “claim”? meaning no civil rights were violated

  68. Posted by incontralados | October 6, 2007 9:41 PM
    And are you aware of just what is the count, now, of GITMO prisoners set free who have bee n RECAUGHT or killed ON THE BATTLEFIELD, since they were released according to DIM demands???
    Under 20.
    &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
    Then you are wrong, aren’t you? and additional American troops and allies and innocent civilians died because of the hammering of the Left for the sake of Gitmo terrorists.

  69. Just watched a CNN clip of the men of PO Box 1142.
    These men of PO Box 1142 were NOT primary interrogators. They were offered placated willing foreign captees in a benign environment to engage in indepth technical interviews. There is NO comparison between the men of PO Box 1142 and current front line or operational field interrogators dealing with AQ or other hostile Islamists captees in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Gitmo. There PO Box 1142 interviews do not even compare to the interrogations of Soviet Afghanistan captees, nor those primary interrogations of the myriad Soviet defectors and lines crossers and third country captees during the Cold War. Apples and oranges.
    If we developed information from a captee or a defector that warranted further indepth interviews, we sent out an adviso to any number of US government entitites or allied NATO organizations and they responded with written questionaires or, in rare cases, sending one of their own to conduct indepth interviews. By the time these pro’s from Dover arrived on scene, or had the captees or defectors delivered to a meeting point further down the line, the captees or defectors had already had their bona fides established, were already in a willing state of mind, and had no perishable information of critical importance to impart. Thus the German scientists at Fort Hunt had already passed through a chain of custody before reaching Fort HUnt and the men of PO Box 1142.
    This is a major operational difference neither the WaPo article nor CNN portrayed with any attempt at accuracy.

  70. do you really believe these detainees are experienceing gulag like conditions? they are receiving more medical treatment and food then at any time in their lives. and the respect given to their religious beleifs borders on absurd! ask solzhenitsyn if he thinks gitmo compares to a gulag. bottom line is gitmo aint no gulag and aint nowhere close.

    Perhaps it is a comfortable gulag, comrade. This does not change the fact that they are held against their will, with no recourse to any other authority, unable to confront their accusers nor to examine the evidence against them.
    This, mind, ignores allegation of torture (or “harsh interrogation methods” for those convinced of the rightness fo their cause).
    Once again, comrade– how many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the Gulag?
    Renko

  71. Posted by incontralados | October 6, 2007 9:51 PM
    actually the DoD thinks its 30. and thats just the ones they know of.
    So, I’m off by 10 and not 100. Good to know.
    **********************
    Meanwhile, the Liberals have sacrificed MORE THAN ONE INNOCENT for the sake of the GUILTY.
    So your contention is shown for what it is.
    You have chosen sides.
    This is War. Not a parlor room tea party.

  72. Posted by incontralados | October 6, 2007 9:49 PM
    Also lets please define torture.
    It has been well defined for quite some time.
    ***************************
    No, no, no.
    Let’s have a NATIONAL VOTE on it.
    THAT is the Constitutional thing to do with a great controversy of this magnitude, when so many use that DEFINITION as an excuse to undermine the miltary during a time of war.
    Let’s have a vote on the definition of TREASON, while we are at it.

  73. it aint gulag no matter how much you want it to be. and as for being held against their will, guess they shouldnt have taken arms against the U.S. huh? their own fault. keep trying to conflate gitmo to a gulag, you just look ignorant when you do.

  74. Like Kim said, COldwarrior 415, that was an excellent post!
    It also reminds me of WHY Israel likes to return Palestinian prisoners. Because they are not tortured. They have access to their prayers when they want this. To other books, if they’d like. Even classes. And, an education. Plus, of course, cigarettes. Etc.
    There’s no question you do well when the treatment from the police, or army personnel, meets high standards. We call this training.
    And, we’ve had to train our own police, nearly across the board.
    So going back in time? Not just to George Washington. But to the reality that in plenty of boonie towns in the USA, life was unpleasant. This was first discovered by people “passing through.”
    And, of course, down south, by Blacks. Because of the ways in which slaves were mistreated.
    Can’t compare any of that stuff to “now.”
    Does “terror” have its uses? It all depends on the information you need. And, how fast you need to obain it.
    I think in police work, this developed into “good cop, bad cop,” routines. Since you’d reach your objective. And, you also didn’t work “alone.”
    Also, from what you described about this particular “spaznaz” Russian; it’s called the Prisoner’s Dilemma. And, it’s a studied approach where the bad guys don’t know what each one is telling the authorities. (Yes. Silence is best.) But trust isn’t usually your strong point … with prisoners. Bad guys in general are approaching you through the eyesight of “seeing their enemy.”
    By the way, the NY Times is the last place to go to study what ‘s going on, now, in Iraq. They’ve got no one there. Their information isn’t even second hand.
    And, lots of it is printed in order to hurt our military. As a matter of fact, all the elites know they learned in Vietnam. And, NOBODY here was torturing them!
    Heck, you think John Kerry ever got tortured? He just made things up because he wanted the headlines. He got them!
    He also thought he’d be president. And, he didn’t even come close.
    Doesn’t mean we don’t have problems coming from both sides of the aisle, now. Where both sides have idiots who feel threatened. (In case you didn’t know? John Murtha feels very threatened!)
    And, those who can will use every action they can so that they can win, even by cheating.
    As long as they’re still in the game, you should suspect that. At least.
    You can get a bunch of russians to change their minds; if part of the promise is they don’t have to go back to russia!
    What can you “promise” John Murtha to get him to turn? Hmm?

  75. Then you are wrong, aren’t you? and additional American troops and allies and innocent civilians died because of the hammering of the Left for the sake of Gitmo terrorists.
    And is that just because you say so?
    Rose, have you had you name read into the recaord of Congress yet?

  76. c’mo renko, work on the reading comprehension. first you somehow think i believe a gulag is defined by size and now you post this?
    16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
    May I presume then, that it is the conservative position that civil rights weaken basic American institutions?
    Renko
    notice the word “claim”? meaning no civil rights were violated

    The question was not whether civil rights were violated– even the most cursory review of the history of the US in the 1950s and before clearly shows this.
    The question was whether conservatives believe that the pursuit of civil rights for all would weaken basic American institutions.
    Again, history would indicate that they do.
    But of course, the ways of American conservatives are inscrutable to those who aren’t white American straight men. Perhaps you would elucidate?
    Renko

  77. A very credible reference, your Vice President. Tell me, how is that nice fellow he shot in the face? Oh, and by the way– where is that pesky WMD?
    Renko
    *******************
    General George Sada has the details and permission to tell, and he does.
    It will take a war on Syria to prove it, do you want the evidence badly enough to let our guys go get it?
    The reason it will take a war on Syria to prove it NOW is because of DIMS that made a millstone of themselves around our military, until the Dim Liberals were SURE their allies the terrorists had time to get it all well hidden.

  78. Then you are wrong, aren’t you? and additional American troops and allies and innocent civilians died because of the hammering of the Left for the sake of Gitmo terrorists.
    And is that just because you say so?
    Rose, have you had you name read into the record of Congress yet?

  79. well the ones who have re-joined the jihadis are least trying to kill American soldiers. does it only count if they are successful?

  80. RE: Teresa (October 6, 2007 9:42 PM)
    “Exactly my point. The hyperbole about some terrorist holding on to a ticking nuclear bomb is pretty unrealistic.”
    And you’re missing mine. Some of the most creative minds in the world could not write the script Washington and New York lived on 9/11. We don’t know all the angles of what may or may not come our way, so dismissing the “impossible” is foolish despite your assertion that it is the expecting of the “impossible” that is so. But let’s move the battlefield away from home a bit.
    Let’s say there’s a mass of soldiers in a somewhat vulnerable theater surrounded by pockets of industrious antagonists nearby. I’m thinking Green Zone, Iraq, with a neighboring Iran or nearby Pakistan. Some of these jihadis get some radioactive material from allies or profiteers and weaponize that material via a dirty bomb… not some sophisticated missile or Fat Man but simple high-explosives trucked around and upwind of Baghdad. Do you see a possibility of such an impossible threat? Say a random capture nets a guy who is tripping densitometers and who has some Al Qods paperwork at a checkpoint in the Sunni triangle. Other curious findings add up to a suspected assault and research indicates you’ve caught a big fish.
    What do you do? What if it is your father/brother/sister who is assigned to the Green Zone installation? Do you then change your perspective? Or do you shrug your shoulders because s/he knew what s/he was getting into and that you should throw caution to the wind? From what I’d gather, you’d laugh it off because it’s pure fantasy and give the guy lawyers and months of 3-hots and a cot.
    I wouldn’t and would sleep comfortably knowing that I wouldn’t – that I don’t have all the opponents’ angles figured out. Further, I’d try to give the tools needed to those who must get grain from chaff before polonium poisons the fields. I’ll let you snicker during “24.”

  81. Posted by incontralados | October 6, 2007 10:24 PM
    Be careful, the Liberals among them will think you are merely hosting an S&M Festival, like Folson Street Parade sponsored by Miller Beer. (ref: Michelle Malkin)
    Rose, can I ask you one question?
    Are you a regular commenter here?
    Seriously, I’m just asking.
    ***************************
    Somewhat regular.

  82. Wow Rose. You are deep in the weeds.
    Back to the topic.
    Ed, do you not participate in your comment threads? This is my first time here. It seems odd that you don’t. Writing this blog and blog related activities (speaking engagements, whatever) is all you do, no?
    Why don’t you participate in these comments? Clearly they have gone off track. Is that how things are done around here?
    Disappointing to say the least.
    The weekend is no excuse, you know, Ed.
    [Why don’t you read the comment policy before making assumptions? You’ve been commenting here for what, an hour? For your information, I don’t edit out people’s comments for accuracy, but if you’d bothered to read the policy, you’d already know that. For your information, I was asleep in the 45 minutes or so that you demanded I rescue your butt in the comments section. I guess that’s no excuse, either.
    If someone’s factually incorrect, feel free to point it out. Other than that, quit your whining or go somewhere else. Does “incontralados” mean “incontinent”? — Ed
    ]

  83. To clarify, Teresa used “unrealistic”. I’m using “impossible”. For all intents and purposes, they’re interchangeable.

  84. Posted by incontralados | October 6, 2007 10:49 PM
    Then you are wrong, aren’t you? and additional American troops and allies and innocent civilians died because of the hammering of the Left for the sake of Gitmo terrorists.
    And is that just because you say so?
    Rose, have you had you name read into the recaord of Congress yet?
    ***********************************
    Just because “I” say so???????????????
    Excuse me – they were caught AGAIN on the BATTLEFIELD???????????????????????????
    Can you please REGISTER THAT FACT and compute, before you ask if that is “just because “I” say so”??????????????????????????
    No, I’m not in the record of Congress, yet.
    You find it objectionable that I like nice neat VOTES on some of this controversial SOCIAL ENGINEERING with a WRECKING BALL that is so popular with the Liberals?

  85. it aint gulag no matter how much you want it to be. and as for being held against their will, guess they shouldnt have taken arms against the U.S. huh? their own fault. keep trying to conflate gitmo to a gulag, you just look ignorant when you do.

    Did they take arms against the U.S.? Did they indeed? How do you know this? Were the facts laid out before an impartial court? Was the evidence against them evaluated by any independent authority? Were they determined to have been guilty beyone a reasonable doubt?
    You do not know that they took up arms against your United States. You do not know because the facts of the case for each of the “detainees” has not been presented in open court, as any free and open society would insist.
    How many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the Gulag, comrade?

  86. the facts werent presented in open court? you mean the way we did in ww2 when we captured japs or germans? you are going way off the reservation here pal. i know they took up arms against the US cause they were caught doing just that. and they have appeared before a military tribunal and many have been freed, others are set to go but no one wants them, shows what wonderful citizens they make huh?
    once again, what would be the grounds for jurisdiction any U.S. court would have for this anyway? they werent arrested they were captured. not U.S. citizens, werent captured in the U.S. either. so why would any court have jurisdiction?

  87. The question was not whether civil rights were violated– even the most cursory review of the history of the US in the 1950s and before clearly shows this.
    The question was whether conservatives believe that the pursuit of civil rights for all would weaken basic American institutions.
    Again, history would indicate that they do.
    But of course, the ways of American conservatives are inscrutable to those who aren’t white American straight men. Perhaps you would elucidate?
    Renko
    &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
    No, Renko, the issue is that by people working off Joseph Stalin’s Agenda for the destruction of America, they have perverted the plain meaning of words to institute lawsuits with such convoluted arguments, that they make it appear they are fighting FOR civil RIGHTS, when in FACT they are attacking basic, healthy community institutions for their own purposes, TO THE DETRIMENT of the Community, for the sake of promoting ANARCHY. They attack institution s that the PEOPLE OF COMMUNITIES H AVE THE BASIC RIGHT TO STRUCTURE for the benefit of hte people in the community – which decide what burdens they are willing to bear, the whole has a right to decide to REJECT SOME BURDENS, if they so please, THEY DO NOT OWE THE TOTAL ABUSE OF LIBERTY TO A LICENSE TO DESTROY – ANARCHY – TO ANYONE.
    If you feel some things are your right, and your community AS A WHOLE DOES NOT AGREE, then you have a right to go somewhere else – BUT YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO IMPOSE THE BURDEN of your DESTRUCTIVE CONDUCT on the community if THEY have REJECTED ACCEPTING THAT RESPONSIBILITY.
    You have no CIVIL RIGHTS to promote ANARCHY or to pervert the plain meaning of ordinary words.
    It’s called RUNNING A CONFIDENCE GAME when it is done by a few people on one naive sucker.
    That is a FELONY – NOT A CIVIL RIGHT.
    If Liberals were fighting for CIVIL RIGHTS, they’d do it through community leaders and VOTES by The People. THROUGH THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROCESS MADE AVAILABLE FOR THAT PURPOSE.
    But they avoid THAT at all costs and work through OLIGARCHIAL BUREAUCRATIC CLIQUES, instead.
    EXTRA-CONSTITUTIONAL, abuse of power.
    “The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism.” –Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1817. ME 15:127
    “The people have a right to petition, but not to use that right to cover calumniating insinuations.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1808. ME 12:166
    How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!
    – Samuel Adams
    Samuel Adams – The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.
    Patrick Henry – Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.

  88. General George Sada has the details and permission to tell, and he does.
    It will take a war on Syria to prove it, do you want the evidence badly enough to let our guys go get it?
    The reason it will take a war on Syria to prove it NOW is because of DIMS that made a millstone of themselves around our military, until the Dim Liberals were SURE their allies the terrorists had time to get it all well hidden.

    So… your source– your only source– is a man selling a book.
    A book that contradicts the findings of the 1,400 person Iraq Survey Group; a team organized by the Pentagon and CIA to determine what happened to the missing WMD.
    If the Pntagon and the CIA are so inept as to completely miss stockpiles of nerve gas and nuclear materials, how in the name of Odin’s beard could they be competent to determine whether one swarthy bastard or another is guilty of terrorism?
    Tell me, Comrade– how many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the Gulag?
    Renko

  89. RE: Ivan Renko (October 6, 2007 9:45 PM)
    “But you’d bloody well better be right [about the perpetrator].”
    “Because if you just tortured some poor sorry bastard because he had a hooked nose and an olive complexion, you should be sitting over there at the defendant’s table.”
    I’m pretty sure the filters to winnow out the would-be prosecuted go beyond proboscis and skin tone.

  90. Renko, under Geneva and Hague the presentation of prisoners of war and war time combatant detainees before a civilian Court is not permitted. We have been involved in legal discussions on this matter for several decades, long before 9/11, and the resultant decisions by DoJ, and Offices of Legal Counsel at CIA, DIA, the Pentagon and other directly affected organizations of government has held until most recent times that allowing prisoners of war and war time combat detainees access to civilian Courts is a dangerous precedent to establish.
    Of course, puffed up by indignation at Gitmo and Bush, by a large segment of the legal profession that has never studied Geneva and Hague in context, and a population equally ignorant or moreso about Geneva and Hague, the debate has grown to large proportions. Again, were this a simple law enforcement matter the Courts would be an adequate venue. But, this is war, and Geneva and Hague both, despite our liberal approaches, humanitarian approaches, to both has clouded the issue.
    But, consider this. Should the Supreme Court rule that the captees at Gitmo are to be afforded the fullness of the US Court system, what happens then?
    As soon as the USSC rules in favor of this, every single US servicemember abroad will have their status changed, and Geneva and Hague both will have essential elements gutted from them. We will see US servicemembers, officers and military leaders, in uniform and civilian, current and former, made subject to foreign civil and criminal courts on any pretext for any number of charges, substantiated and otherwise. The protections of POW’s and war time detainees, citizens in uniform of any type or time, will change, for us, for everyone.
    The detainees at Gitmo by and large are battlefield captures. They wore no recognizable uniform, carried no distinguishing insignia, had no recognizable organization of command and control, violated themselves most of the basic tenets of Geneva and Hague [thus further abrogating their “rights” under both] to include using women and children and other unarmed civilians for cover and shields, or using random bombings in civilian areas meant to inflict civilian casualties, and were/are for legal purposes under Geneva and Hague mere terrorists and bandits. A single bullet in the back of their heads is all they are actually entitled to under Geneva and Hague.
    Had we adhered to the letter of Geneva and Hague, there would be NO detainees at Gitmo. They’d all have been summarily executed upon capture. All fully legal under the present rubric of both Geneva and Hague. We would have been justified. It is a matter of Law and international treaty.
    But, we would have lost a goldmine of actionable intelligence along the way, and a host of long term strategic intelligence as well. That we chose to capture them and confine them, remove them from the battlefield, is something we humanely chose to do. We were under no legal or treaty obligation to do so. But, because of our need and the necessity to obtain operational and strategic intelligence on the activities of AQ and other related organizations and their supporters, we now find ourselves faced with a segment of the population and the legal profession that understand not one bit about Geneva and Hague and the vital importance of both for ourselves, our allies, and all signatories, friendly or enemy.
    The very idea of offering these detainees access to the fullness of the US legal system may sound nice and warm and fuzzy, but the long term effect would be disasterous.

  91. great post coldwarrior! wish i had the energy to make that comprehensive of a post. but when its in reply to someone who wants to remain ignorant i just cant. i’ll give ivan credit, at least he ventures out of the Kos/DU echo chamber. i can only hope he’ll open his mind and learn a little while out of that nurturning biosphere.

  92. Posted by incontralados | October 6, 2007 11:00 PM
    tsk tsk tsk, incont…
    If you didn’t want someone to respond to you, why did you come here? Does it say “Daily Kos” on the top of this site banner???
    You need someone to defend you? Then why did you leave the kindergarten playground?
    Did you really expect when you wandered out of your cocoon to find MOST AMERICANS agreeing to the Liberal premise of it is fair game for Liberals to stomp our troops to a bloody pulp BEFORE you let them get near the TERRORISTS?
    And that America is supposed to shield the TERRORISTS from the consequences of their own actions, at the expense of our troops, and our neighborhoods and families?
    And if these terrorists make it here because of your selective bleeding hearts, you expect these troops to come to your street and protect you from having to live as if it is Baghdad in YOUR hometown????????????????????
    WHAT TERMS WILL YOU GIVE THE TROOPS TO FIGHT BY WHEN IT IS ON YOUR STREET???????????? When they are ALL that is between you and a gang of TERRORISTS.

  93. Tell me, Comrade– how many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the Gulag?
    Renko
    &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
    General George Sada is not my only source, but it wouldn’t matter to you if 50 million people lined up the stuff in front of you on the sidewalk, you’ve made up your mind based on “just because you say so”.
    When it comes to Gitmo, so far, there are only about 3 or 4 of the TERRORISTS CAUGHT IN THE BATTLEFIELD I’m prepared to worry about.
    I figure now, the easiest way to deal with them, DUE TO LIBERAL HAMSTRINGING OF OUR SOLDIERS is to tell our guys to EXECUTE THEM ALL and TAKE NO PRISONERS ALIVE, kill everyone on the battlefield.
    And execute those who claim to be soldiers WHO ARE NOT, who then go to the MSM with wild FALSE STORIES of American atrocities. Execute them publicly, and then hang their bodies for 4 weeks on the town square. Like this last one, Jesse MacBeth, I think his name is – EXECUTE HIM.
    The world saw the evidence, there is no question.
    That will save a lot of INNOCENT people, now, won’t it, Renko. More than Liberals save, won’t it, Renko.

  94. the facts werent presented in open court? you mean the way we did in ww2 when we captured japs or germans? you are going way off the reservation here pal. i know they took up arms against the US cause they were caught doing just that. and they have appeared before a military tribunal and many have been freed, others are set to go but no one wants them, shows what wonderful citizens they make huh?
    once again, what would be the grounds for jurisdiction any U.S. court would have for this anyway? they werent arrested they were captured. not U.S. citizens, werent captured in the U.S. either. so why would any court have jurisdiction?

    Objection, Your Honor– irrelevant to the matter at hand.
    Are they or are they not held without recourse to any higher authority?
    Are they or are they not allowed to confront their accusers?
    Are they, or are they not allowed to examine and refute the evidence held against them?
    You assert that every single man in Guantanamo and in every “undisclosed location” throught the world has taken up arms against the United States and thus is deserving of his imprisonment– and interrogation.
    Where is your evidence? Was it put forward in open court? Can it be examined by impartial authorities?
    You cannot know. You cannot know how many innocent men are in Guantanamo or elsewhere.
    We know for a fact that some innocent men have been imprisoned; and from that we may reasonably deduce that there must be others.
    Why should not the Great Writ of 1215 apply to these sorry sonsabitches? What is there to fear from bringing them before open court to establish the facts of each and every case?
    Tell me, Comrade– how many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the Gulag?
    Renko

  95. Posted by coldwarrior415 | October 6, 2007 11:29 PM
    *************************
    Posted by chas | October 6, 2007 11:36 PM
    great post coldwarrior!
    *********************************
    Major Mega Dittos to BOTH you guys!
    Good work, guys! Thanks! Major THANKS!

  96. incontralados wrote:
    It has been well defined for quite some time. The trouble now is that the Bush Administration has been fiddling with it these past few years. Ask Ed about that book he’s going to read. Perhaps it will show how the CIA has gone all soft since Clinton. I don’t know.
    I’m pretty sure you’ll find that interrogations have been carried out before the Bush administration by the CIA that might when being looked at might not be considered kosher. Then again, whenever cops take down someone for resisting arrest and end up resorting to zapping them with tasers and its caught on tape there are always charges of brutality and it certainly looks brutal on camera. But the fact of the matter is, police officers in the course of doing their jobs will routinely have to use force against people,because people aren’t always willing to be arrested. It’s not necessarily torture, simply because force is used.
    also, I notice a lot that when people talk about torture they are not talking about the same things necessarily and a lot of stuff gets conflated. Critics keep their descriptions of torture deliberately vague so as to always have a cudgel with which to beat the administration with. Therefore, whenver any discussion of coercive techniques are brought up its always lumped into the torture argument. So,something like having a female interrogator gets lumped in with waterboarding,gets lumped in with using drills on kneecaps and its always torture. So whenever the critic gets into a discussion about the merits or demerits of torture, they routinely paint with an extremely broad brush.
    Even the argument about whether torture works or not, or whether someone is for or against torture becomes confused because the terms are so vague. I would say for example, that I’m for using harsh interrogation against a suspected terrorist, but not in favor of torture, because the harsh interrogation techniques i’d be in favor of don’t rise to the level of torture. However, someone else would broad brush me and say I’m for torture. No, not at all. And while torture certainly may work, you don’t need to engage in torture to break a suspect and all that is required is interrogation. Interrogation works, thus torture isn’t needed. But by the same token you wont get any information out of people unless you interogate them,and interrogation is by its very nature coercive. Therefore you need to establish the limits as to what is acceptible coerciion that can be applied to those that are being interrogated that is effective and doesn’t rise to the level of torture. Waterboarding is a procedure that can be administered in two minutes and will break most people and will not cause any lasting harm. It’s also used to train those in the SERE program. Unless we are going to argue that everytime someone undergoes SERE training they are being tortured, and all military instructors are torturers, then I have to wonder at the big deal of waterboarding. America isn’t losing its soul because it waterboards SERE trainees, Andrew Sullivan isn’t howling in outrage everytime a SERE trainee gets waterboarded.
    Becasue its not torture.
    I ceratinly woulnd’t want it done to me,any more than I’d want to be tasered for resisting arrest, but by the same token those administering such actions should not be lumped in with actual torturers and its better that those things are used than to, for example, use a drill on someone or yank someones teeth out (but by the way, when dentists do that are they torturers, or do we see the context whereby their “TORTURE” is in fact for the greater good).
    Also, those who have participated in the torture that the Bush Administration has allowed, have serious regrets, are in prison, or have commited suicide. Does that work for you? It’s easy to advocate something, yet another to do it, and yet more to justify it after the fact.
    Please be specific about who committed what actions and who commited suicide and what actions those who commited them did specifically. Also when you say the Bush administration allowed all such actions, please prove that. Abu Ghraib, for example, had some egregious actions, but there is no evidence that for example Rumsfeld in each case signed off on say putting a panty on someone’s head. In other words, there is som evidence that Rumsfeld allowed for some interrogation methods on certain targets, and there is also evidence that some in Abu Ghraib did things to certain prisoners that some might find objectionable, but it does’t mean that becase something was done in a prison somewhere that the Bush administration allowed such actions. Also,considering certain people are in prison for commiting certain acts, that suggests that there was punishment involved for certain wrongdoing.
    You are conflating wrongs against groups of people with wrongs against individuals. Our government acts for all of us, whether we agree or not. I should stop here. You clearly cannot think beyond your self interest.
    This has to be the dumbest thing i’ve read in a while. I’m conflatingwrongs against groups of people with wrongs against individuals? What does that even mean? Groups are made up of individuals.Something that affects a group also effects individuals within that group. So for example, when we drop a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima the blast effects a group of individuals all of whom feel the effects individually. ANd the point is, to win the war it could be argued that dropping of that bomb in fact saved lives (though obviously also costing lives) in that it ended the war, thus preventing hundreds of thousands more from perishing in a protracted war.
    If we can acknowledge that in WWII dropping a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima was justified, and despite that that was still the only good war, then maybe howling in outrage because a few terrorists were subjected to 2 1/2 minutes of waterboarding is a bit of moral preening.

  97. EXECUTE THEM ALL and TAKE NO PRISONERS ALIVE, kill everyone

    Thank you. Comrade Stalin would be so proud.
    Renko

  98. Ivan Renkno wrote:
    Are they really terrorists? Ah, now, there’s there rub.
    No one in Gitmo’s ever been tried in a court o’ law, now has he? Had the opportunity to face his accusers and question the evidence against him? Been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?
    No, I don’t think so. And so, since you cannot know if any given individual in detention is a “terrorist,” what you advocate is using torture against an innocent man.

    Excuse me, but in many cases, these are enemy combatants picked up on a battlefiled. How on earth would you face your accusers and question the evidence. Even the Geneva convention allows for the detaining of those found on the battlefied, for the duration of the war. Is the geneva convention itself unjust?
    Also, what’s your position on those who are held in jail who can’t post bail but have yet to go to trail. They have yet to be found guity in a court of law, yet must spend time in jail until the trial commences. This is not even talking about enemy combatants, but american citizens who are accused of a crime.
    Finally, don’t you have to be a signatory to the geneva conventions to have the genevea conventions apply to you? What country does al qaeda represent, and when have they abided by the rules of war, which would grant them geneva protections? Mercenaries are not protected by geneva at all, why extend geneva protections to mercenaries?

  99. Actually, under Geneva and Hague, the summary execution of terrorists and bandits and combatants not in uniform is perfectly permissible. And, we have done it before [decades and decades ago] as have a good many other signatories to the Conventions in more recent times.
    AQ and the Taliban are not signatories. They do not follow even the most basic protocols but they have allies here in the US, and among certain Euros, who demand they be allowed to enjoy the benefits of Geneva and Hague and beyond both. Renko is but one of them.
    Had the detainees at Gitmo been picked up doing an armed robbery at the Kwickie-Mart in Myrtle Beach, then I’d agree, the Courts are the proper venue.
    But, they are not being held for robbing a Kwickie-Mart, are they? Having worked with a number of current members of both the armed forces and the intelligence community for most of my adult life who are actively involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo and elsewhere acrtoss the globe, I’d lean strongly toward their being able to differentiate between a Kwickie-mart robber wannabee and a battlefield combatant.
    Invoke Comrade Stalin all you wish. It adds nothing of substance to the argumentation.

  100. The very idea of offering these detainees access to the fullness of the US legal system may sound nice and warm and fuzzy, but the long term effect would be disasterous.

    I’ve not once mentioned the US legal system. In point of fact, I’ve not mentioned anyone’s legal system.
    I’ve mentioned the right to confront one’s accusers.
    I’ve mentioned the right to examine the evidence against one.
    I’ve mentioned the right to have one’s case reviewed by a higher authority.
    I’ve mentioned nothing more than what every Englishman won from King John in 1215.
    Without review in an open venue by impartial observers, there cannot be sure knowledge that any given prisoner is guilty of anything.
    How many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the gulag, Comrade?
    Renko

  101. Excuse me, but in many cases, these are enemy combatants picked up on a battlefiled.

    If that is so in many cases, then it must not be so in some cases.
    How many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the gulag?
    Is it one? Two? Five? Fifty? One Hundred?
    HOW MANY INNOCENT MEN ARE YOU PREPARED TO SACRIFICE TO THE GULAG, COMRADE?
    Renko

  102. ivan – well since every point you repeatedly use has been thoroughly rebutted you are pretty much entering troll territory. i’ve asked a few times about jurisdiction, you wont answer but keep insisting on some court review these cases. which coldwarrior pointed out could violate geneva. as for those not picked up on the battle field they arent innocents, they were arrested and for whatever reason turned over to the U.S. instead of the arresting country handling them, like KSM for instance. think he’s innocent? oh, wait i forgot, w/o a court decision you dont know, you cant wipe your ass w/o a court decision apparently!

  103. Renko, your argument is specious. You are the one who built the legal system strawman. Thus, citing the US legal systemn is a natural outgrowth of the interpretation of your remarks. Which other legal system would you have us invoke, and under what law would they or should they be given jurisdiction?
    Sacrificing one innocent man for the gulag? What gulag? Seriously. What gulag?
    Before you once again start spouting the radical chic Che-Guevaraista terminology, perhaps doing a bit more study and homework and actually researching from reliable sources the subject at hand would do you and others far more good. Otherwise, try Kos or other such sites as their standards are a bit more lax, shall we say, than those here.
    Guilty of anything? Let’s see? Firing upon US or allied soldiers in the field? That is pretty much the standard under Geneva and Hague, both impartial references. Setting off bombs in civilian areas to inflict civilian casualties? Also pretty much considered by the imparitality of both Geneva and Hague. Violating the most basic tenets of both Geneva and Hague? Pretty much identifies them as a class to be considered to be hostile enemy combatants under the impartiality of both Geneva and Hague. Providing assistance or providing material support or providing leadership to those who carry out acts of terrorism and banditry in a war zone? That, too, is also already amply covered by both Geneva and Hague.
    And, there have been those at Gitmo and elsewhere who have been found innocent guilty of terrorism or banditry or armed struggle against US forces and allied forces who have been released from Gitmo. There is indeed a machanism at hand that allows for their being deemed not a threat, no longer a threat, innocent or mistakenly captured.
    But, for the most part, your argumentation is specious, juvenile in fact. But, you are not alone. Therein lies the overall problem confronting all of us.

  104. But, they are not being held for robbing a Kwickie-Mart, are they? Having worked with a number of current members of both the armed forces and the intelligence community for most of my adult life who are actively involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo and elsewhere acrtoss the globe, I’d lean strongly toward their being able to differentiate between a Kwickie-mart robber wannabee and a battlefield combatant.

    Err… so you say. So they say. But human beings are known for being brave, strong, righteous, true… and wrong.
    Cue habeas corpus.
    And even with habeas corpus, even with the rights enshrined in the Constitution of the United States, innocent men are still punished.
    And so I ask… how many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the Gulag?
    Renko

  105. First of all, how many men have been sacrificed? Please get over your gulag rhetoric, its getting awfully tired.
    How about if we simply applied geneva rules and kept everyone detained for the duration of hostiliites however long that lasts. Would that be ok with you? How many innocent men is the Geneva Convention prepared to sacrifice for the gulag? Hmm?
    THis is war, different circumstances than peace and different due process rights than polite civilization,and within this war there are lawful and unlawful combatants,and different rules apply. In many cases they may even be housed in the same prison.
    And despite your assertion to the contrary, many in fact have been released from these prisons (and in many cases recaughton the battlefield fighting us again) which suggests oversight. Again is it the same due process as you would expect in a court of law? Of course not, but why would you expect that on a battlefield?
    I think your invoking of the gulag word over and over, only suggests that you are engaging in hyperbole, not that you have much understanding of actual gulags.

  106. “And so I ask… how many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the Gulag?”
    Well, since you have asked the same question a number of times, I’ll answer it.
    How many innocent men am I prepared to sacrifice to the so-called Gulag? One. You.
    But I tire of the juvenile sophomoric rhetoric you choose to cling to with such childlike devotion. Time to call it a night.

  107. Posted by Ivan Renko | October 6, 2007 11:57 PM
    Tell me, Comrade– how many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the Gulag?
    Renko
    ********************
    You have failed to lay the proper foundation, Comrade.
    You are out of order and attempting to improperly usurp power and authority NOT YOURS TO HAVE.

  108. Posted by Ivan Renko | October 7, 2007 12:42 AM
    Cue habeas corpus.
    &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
    THIS IS WAR!
    We see this is over your head.
    But there is also TREASON. THAT is a criminal matter, Renko.
    One the PERPETRATOR isn’t allowed to set the definition for. THE COMMUNITY sets that definition.

  109. HOW MANY INNOCENT MEN ARE YOU PREPARED TO SACRIFICE TO THE GULAG, COMRADE?
    Renko
    **********************
    Personally, I’m not prepared to sacrifice ANY innocent men.
    But I’m fully prepared to hold every Socialist Dim Liberal in America totally responsible for their own actions.
    I’m NOT prepared to watch some court simply call them INSANE, either. Not when they are able to follow a complicated list of intricate instructions, like the Stalinist List they codified as their platform sometime around 1963.

  110. Posted by coldwarrior415 | October 7, 2007 12:51 AM

    How many innocent men am I prepared to sacrifice to the so-called Gulag? One. You.

    &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
    What on EARTH is “INNOCENT” about Renko????????
    That pile of drivel he’s spewing isn’t “INNOCENT”.

  111. “How many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the gulag, Comrade?”
    Hmm. It’s Godwin’s Brother’s-in-Law Law, or something.

  112. Posted by Ivan Renko | October 7, 2007 12:04 AM

    EXECUTE THEM ALL and TAKE NO PRISONERS ALIVE, kill everyone

    Thank you. Comrade Stalin would be so proud.
    Renko
    &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
    Of YOU. You got your “QUOTE” you were after.
    You have perverted everything America has ever stood for, for a political ambition under which NO peoples could ever survive.
    You’ve chosen your pasture. Unless you get yourself educated quickly, and get off that pathway, it will become permanent, if it is not, already.
    The writing is plain, and the end was written before the beginning. All that is left is for each human to decide which part they intend to play in it, who their eternal master shall forever be.
    God says it this way, “This day I set before you Life and Death. I would that you choose Life.”
    But the CHOICE is your own. For the master you are currently siding, it was long ago ordained that fallen man is his lunch. That master isn’t interested in being your “friend”.
    But that is currently perfect for you, since you have decided to NOT be a friend of Life, but have sided with Destruction against your own community.
    This is War, and it isn’t a game. And what those people do to other human beings isn’t a game, either. You won’t be held guiltless.
    Rom 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in [their] knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
    Rom 1:31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
    Rom 1:32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
    It won’t be pretty.

  113. good call anonymous! however i proved godwin’s law earlier in the thread when i suggested renko switch to bush=hitler instead of his gulag theme.

  114. RE: chas (October 7, 2007 2:11 AM)
    Sorry, chas. I missed it. Your radar was more receptive than mine. ‘Course, after it blips eight or nine times, it’s a bit hard to consider mere noise. I’ll recalibrate. 😉

  115. Why do you do this, Jihadi?
    You go on jihad in Afghanistan at 18, get blown away by a Russian Hind gunship. You get reborn in subsaharan Africa and die at age three of malaria (like millions of others) (Thank you, Rachel Carson).
    You’re reborn in Palestine and strap on a bomb vest at age 12 and go blow yourself up in a pizza parlor full of mommies and little kids.
    You’re reborn in Iraq. . .or Pakistan . . .or . . .
    Why do you repeat this pattern? Obviously you’re getting your ass blown off every time. Sooner or later you’re going to have to think about why that happens.
    Allah doesn’t care what happens to you. He’s moved on. You should move on too. There are other planets, other cultures to recruit. Why should Allah stay here and mess with our petty business? Allah’s long gone.
    Don’t believe that? Ask Allah to give you a demonstration. You’ll wait until you die of old age: He’s gone; he’s long gone.
    So what to do now? Do I really have to tell you that? Make peace with your neighbors. Think through actually telling the truth when you deal with people (not going all takfir).
    So there you have it. You’re condemned to live here with all of the infidels, Allah has left the building.
    Or you can off yourself in some bombvest kinda way, and reemerge in a yurt in some Mongolian encampment.
    So, is reincarnation real? You don’t think so; I think so. We have all sorts of conservation rules in physics: why should conservation of personality — psyche — be any different? Maybe so, maybe not. Sort it out for yourself.
    But Jihadi: You’ll always pay. Don’t expect to ever get off for what you’ve done, whatever much or little that is. We’ll never forget, and we’ll always collect. Sorry, that’s how it is.

  116. 35 million died in the real gulag. There were no courts and yet people like Renko loved their Uncle Joe.
    Speaking of love, I think coldwarrior is one smart cookie.

  117. Could none of you simply answer, “As many as it takes?”
    As many as it takes to make you feel safe?
    This is how many innocent men you would sacrifice to the Gulag, comrades; let there be no doubt about it. It is the base of your actions, the heart of your ideology; that you have the right to imprison, to torture, to execute until all of your enemies are crushed beneath your heels.
    How sad that by so doing, you make the entire world your enemies.
    Renko

  118. Still trying are you, Renko? To what end?
    Crushing one’s enemies is pretty much what warfare is all about. Or, to quote a source that may be a bit more closer to your age and intellect:
    “What is best in Life? Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.” — Conan the Barbarian, inscribed on his Throne in Valhalla.
    Making enemies around the world? Maybe among the jihadis and their supporters, I’ll admit. And who needs to bother making friends with jihadis. Our goal should be assisting them in meeting Allah, one by one, or in groups, as necessity allows. And, along the way, we will make friends among those who were subjugated by the jihadis. Seems some of our best friends in the world right now come from those nations that spent 50 years subjugated by Stalinists and their offspring. Their firsthand understanding and experience of subjugation gives them a perspective you essentially lack.
    Weakness, Renko, never won any friends or allies for anyone over the centuries. Even among the jihadis and others who have used the masses to their own selfish ends. Sorta like Stalin, wouldn’t you say?
    Weakness never has made friends with anyone over all the centuries. Seems “weakness” is one of the main themes in the writings of Bin Ladin, as in his many citings of Vietnam, Beirut, and Somalia in his exhortations to his followers over the years.
    But go ahead, consume yourself with your delusions.
    It certainly gives us insight into your thought processes or lack thereof, and surely will gain you many many “friends” across the world…until, that is, they turn to you for real support and find you lacking in ability to actually take a stand against one’s enemies.
    At that point you become obsolete to the cause, to the State, to the rest of the world. Obsolete, Mr. Renko. Obsolete.

  119. Our goal should be assisting them in meeting Allah, one by one, or in groups, as necessity allows.

    Yes, and the Soviets thought the same thing when they tried to pacify Afghanistan.
    And Chechnya.
    But, that’s the nature of empire building, isn’t it? The colonial war against Iraq in which you are engaged at this moment; the aggressive war against Iran that you and yours so stridently demand– whilst ignoring your erstwhile ally Saudi Arabia, home to most of the murderous criminal hijackers; and propping up Pakistan which is both where the criminal mastermind is holed up and was the source of the very nuclear know-how that provided the Bomb to North Korea.
    How is that invasion of Iraq going? We are all aware that you don’t care about innocent Iraqi lives– by definition, they are not Americans and undeserving of your consideration– but how many American boys are you prepared to sacrifice in Iraq?
    I know, I know, “as many as it takes to achieve victory.”
    And what is victory? Has that ever been articulated? Have you ever defined this victory for which you are so willing to sacrifice (other peoples’) blood?
    How many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice Comrade?
    As many as it takes to make you feel safe.
    Unfortunately, you will never feel safe until every other human on the planet is subjugated to your will.
    And the harder you fight– the more enemies you will create.
    Renko

  120. Personally, I’m not prepared to sacrifice ANY innocent men.

    A most excellent attitude.

    But I’m fully prepared to hold every Socialist Dim Liberal in America totally responsible for their own actions.

    Ah, then we are in complete agreement.
    So long as we also are prepared to hold every clinic bomber, every armed anti-immigrant vigilante, every shooter; every Eric Rudolph and every Timothy McVeigh– let us also hold them responsible for their own actions.
    And as long as we’re at it– is it not long past time to hold Osama Bin Ladin personally responsible for his actions? Why is he not in custody?
    Renko

  121. Renko:
    It seems to me that cold warrior made some relevant points whereas you just spout meaningless propaganda that all of us have heard a million times.
    How is the invasion in Iraq going? Well if you are AlQaida or an AlQaida sympathizer not so well.
    You know the amazing thing is that Saddam could wipe half his population off the face of the earth and you and your kind would do nothing. Other than yammer about some photo with Rumsfeld. But you would not ever actually save a life.
    And right now the Iranians could hang anyone they want and you would do nothing, say nothing, because if you can not blame it on Bush you just do not give a damn.
    And right now we could turn those people in Gitmo back over to the Saudis or the Chinese and they could shoot them and you would say nothing, because it would not serve your larger purpose of pandering to fascists.
    Yep, when you get right down to it, you are just another nasty little troll saying the same crap over and over and over and over again.

  122. You missed something:
    If today’s NYT had been reporting and the president at the time had been a Republican it would not have stayed a secret for six decades. It would have been on its front pages in six months.
    The NYT’s reporting in this area is totally reliant on selective leaks by highly partisan Democratic ‘civil servants’.

  123. And Ivan, do not fool yourself you sanctimonious little prig….. if you get your way you will sacrifice thousands of innocent people.
    You might pretend that these people at Gitmo are just innocent guys who were walking along minding their own business when Bushitler nabbed them for no good reason and took them to Gitmo where they were forced to endure three square meals a day. But the truth is they are where they are because they were killing people or trying to..
    So it seems to me that sacrificing innocent people is your number one goal.

  124. Renko…trying to find the word to describe you and your rants. Can’t find one that truly fits. Delusional comes pretty close to the mark.
    Go ahead and bring up Afghanistan and the Soviet experience out there.
    They lost and lost large because they were hell bent on destroying or killing any and all Afghans who did not actively suypport them or their puppet government in Kabul. There’s was not a misison of liberation not a bit. it was a misison of conquest, annexation, and forced compliance.
    They also lost because they and their system offered no possibility for establishing a steep learning curve on the battlefield. They lost because the reality of what they were trying to accomplish in Afghanistan ran contrary to the official party rhetoric in Moscow. Socialist friendship from the end of a gun. Rhetoric and actions met reality. And the Soviets could not respond or refused to learn and adjust. But, above all they could not reconcile the Big Lie.
    Our experience out there in the present day is a far cry from the Soviet’s strategy and tactics in their Afghan war. A very far cry.
    No, we are not engaged in a colonial war in Iraq, nor in Afghanistan. Only a complete fool would accept that colonization notion to be true.
    You are not old enough to remember nor experience a real colony abroad are you? But you seem to accept all the “correct” progressive rhetoric. Do you EVER question yourself and your rhetoric? If not, why not. A mirror is one hell of a thing to view.
    If there were a resurgence of radical chic I am sure you would be amonst them, banner held high, getting the adrenalin rush of being at the barricades…
    I lived through 1968, when so many of your same cloth abroad and here at home truly believed that Rudy the Red and Ulrike Meinhof were the salvation of a Europe turned “fascist”…so much so that De Gaulle took refuge outside of Paris to save his own skin and la Republique, and Europe was under a constant terror watch, unable to come to grips with when and where the next bomb would go off and who would be kiulled. Shut down a number of economies along the way for a while as well.
    The reality of 1968 was not that the radicals were winning, but something deeper was emerging.
    Czechoslovakia was crushed, and the radicals cheered.
    When in 1972 the Isreali Olympic Team was murdered at Munich, Ulrike Meinhof and others on the Left cheered.
    There were many other instances where the radical rhetoric met reality, and each time the radicals came away wanting, lacking in depth, showing themselves to be nothing more than kids of privilege running wild trying to build a world they could not build from a world they chose not to understand.
    They only thing the radicals prolonged was the killing, by them, and those who supported them, across the globe. By 1969 and 1970 it actually appeared that the forces of the Left were winning and winning large across the globe. But other than destruction and rhetoric what did the radicals actually offer and accomplish?
    This extendeed well into 1976, when Carter was elected on the hope and promise of human rights being the lynchpin of his administration and the world was going to rush to the American ideals articulated by Carter…and what happened? A guy named Wilfried Bose hijacks a plane to Entebbe and sorts out the Jews and Zionists for execution. A German leftist radical…sorting out Jews and Zionists in a manner so similar to the railhead at Auschwitz. Reports by liberal journalists started coming out of Cambodia of the wholesale killing by Pol Pot and others who spouted the Leftist idealist racical rhetoric.
    And the rest of the world began to react to the left, and their rhetoric, and most importantly their actions.
    Along the way, a lot of former leftists became staunch conservatives…to include young Joschka Fischer the present German Foreign Minister. He was able to see the Big Lie the left was promulgating.
    So did a lot of others, myself included.
    Take away the mantel of Islam, and there is NO difference between the radicals who terrorized Europe and burned Paris and Frankfurt and Berlin in 1968 and the Islamists of today. None.
    That is the reality the left, and those like you, Renko, who fail to see and understand, through your own ignorance or by willful design.
    An old cliche that still holds a bit of truth today, still, is that, “if you are 18 and not a Liberal, you have no heart. If you are 30 and are not a Conservative, you have no brain.”
    Give that a good deal of thought before offering anymore of your vapid, and annoying, replies about the “gulag” and other now very predictable responses.

  125. You might pretend that these people at Gitmo are just innocent guys who were walking along minding their own business when Bushitler nabbed them for no good reason and took them to Gitmo where they were forced to endure three square meals a day. But the truth is they are where they are because they were killing people or trying to..

    How do you know? Have you seen the evidence? For every man held there or renditioned to other prisons and camps around the world?
    Like any angry lynch mob, you believe they are guilty and thus revel in their suffering.
    I’ve never said that no one in Gitmo is guilty.
    I’ve simply said that not every one in Gitmo is guilty.
    Coupled with the question– how many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice?
    Renko

  126. the islamic fanatics who we call terrorists is nothing but the current manifestation of a centuries old group that has espoused the same line of bs for ages.
    in the past the tried and true soloution to the problem is to quite simply kill them all. then they lie dormant for about a century or so and then try again.
    the only reason that this bunch is doing well is because they have the MSM in their camp pursuing a public relations war on the viet nam war model with the democratic party riding the band wagon hopefully to power.
    for those of you to young to remember, the military actually beat the insurgents in that one but the hippies and peaceniks managed to politically remove our troops from country and controlled the news well enough that the people of the united states did not know that we had perservered.
    then a couple of years after we were gone the north vietnamese performed a good old fashion invasion and took the south in a SECOND military incursion.
    true, a certain amount of corruption paved the way but what the hell its not as if they were the great state of new jersey or something.
    this business of a legal defense for the gitmo gang is another battle with the fifth column of the public relations war.
    our justice system has as one of its basic foundations that the person who is testifying is bound to tell the truth by affirmation of intention.
    these guys are all whacked out islamists who believe that its great sport to lie like a rug to anyone who is not of their particular tiny sect of their religeon. and so if the court system were administered as it is supposed to be they would be packed off to a convienient cell the first statement that they made after taking the oath to tell the truth.
    something interesting to think about is if these liberals want the gitmo bunch released so badly why shouldn’t we turn them loose in the liberals neighborhood.
    i mean what the h#$$ we’re all just a bunch of fellow travelers aren’t we?
    C

  127. So, if I understand this logic of yours correctly, Comrade Renko. You are more than willing to let a thousand guilty terrorists go free, and are more than willing to accept the full consequences of this action, in order that one, just one, possible, possibly innocent man be confined, pending adjudication of his situation?
    Well, that seals it.
    I, a former dedicated student radical from the old days when radicals actually did real stuff, long before the internet made it so much easier, am NOT willing to allow a hundred guilty terrorist go free in any form other than dead as I am not willing to accept the consequences of their being able to kill more, maim more and promulgate terror more just so one “innocent” jihadi is not confined.
    I, as others in the civilized world, have limits to what we are willing to accept and not accept.
    On the larger scale of things relevant to the real world, one “innocent” jihadi at Gitmo is far far less important than the deaths of hundreds and thousands of real innocents at the hands of other jihadis, supported by those of the neo-radical chic generation.
    I may not like you, Renko, but I am not willing to allow so-called “innocent” jihadis, be it one or be it a hundred, from blowing you up on some street corner.
    What you fail to see, Renko, is that ascademic thought problems [such as your present obsession] and reality [my lifelong adult obsession] are light years away from each other and when the two clash, reality most often if not always wins the day.

  128. hey ivan
    the vast majority of these folk were taken prisnor on the field of battle with weapons in their hands.
    thats enough for me.
    as for the rest, well it just wasn’t their day now was it?
    C

  129. They lost and lost large because they were hell bent on destroying or killing any and all Afghans who did not actively suypport them or their puppet government in Kabul. There’s was not a misison of liberation not a bit. it was a misison of conquest, annexation, and forced compliance.

    So you assert. Let us parse your sentence for a moment, may we? You seem to believe that a colonial war requires that an actual colony be emplaced on the target country. But tell me, why would you go to such trouble if you can place an amenable government in control of what you really want– unfettered access to the resources of that country?

    No, we are not engaged in a colonial war in Iraq, nor in Afghanistan. Only a complete fool would accept that colonization notion to be true.

    After all, the Americans have nothing but concern for the lives and the wellbeing of those poor Iraqis; and is willing to invade any country on earth to remove dictatorial regimes and bring the flower of democracy.
    I leave Afghanistan out of this equation; in my very humble opinion the Taliban had it coming and the American attack on that country was a legitimate expression of self defense.
    Afghanistan is also notoriously short on natural resources (unless, of course, you count the toughness of its fighters and the vastness of it’s opium poppy fields); perhaps accounting for the shortage of military and civilian resources needed to turn that operation into the resounding success that it could have been (with, I might add, the approval and appreciation of the world).

    No, America would never stoop to invading a country simply because of its untapped natural resources, now would it?
    I appreciate the history of the Baader-Meinhof gang; the Japanese Red Army Faction; Entebbe; and all the other leftist conspiracies to wet your bed.
    They’re irrelevant to my point, which is simply this: There are innocent people killed, innocent people imprisoned, and innocent people tortured by your government.
    Not everyone. But some.
    How many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the Gulag, comrade?
    Renko

  130. hey ivan
    the vast majority of these folk were taken prisnor on the field of battle with weapons in their hands.
    thats enough for me.
    as for the rest, well it just wasn’t their day now was it?
    C

    We may quibble about how vast that majority is; but I thank you for having the honor to at least admit that you are willing to sacrifice innocent men.
    Renko

  131. I may not like you, Renko, but I am not willing to allow so-called “innocent” jihadis, be it one or be it a hundred, from blowing you up on some street corner.

    On and on you go about jihadis, as if your vaunted American power knows, just knows who the “jihadis” are and who they are not.
    There is no need for due process, you know who the bad guys are, and you are determined to kill them before they may harm you.
    And so you essentially advocate the classic “kill them all, God will know his own” approach to the world.
    And I– I am a horrid, wretched leftist, because I believe that the lives of all people should be held sacred. Because I believe it is wrong to imprison/torture/execute people without a strong, “reasonable doubt” knowledge of their guilt, you speak of me in the same breath as the murderous Baader Meinhof gang.
    Whatever are you so afraid of, coldwarrior? That some bearded “jihadis” will strap on bombs and wander into your local mall? Are you afraid that the “jihadis” are so powerful that they will turn 225 years of Constitutional government into sharia law? Are you afraid your women will have to start wearing burqas and that you’ll be forced to wear a beard and pray toward Mecca five times a day?
    I mean, conservatives have always hated and feared dark men; have since before Nat Turner’s insurrection– but damn, since when has anyone had that kind of power?
    Renko

  132. In war, there are NO innocent men.

    Thus you assert your right to invade any country and kill any and every human there, because if you’re at war with them, none of them could possibly be innocent, could they?
    “A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.” –Edmund Burke
    Renko

  133. When the jihadis stop killing innocents across the globe, when they no longer behead or stone to death those among the population who do not cling to Islam with the same vigor they hold, when the jihadis no longer see every infidel as a legitimate target for their bombs, kidnappings and murders, when the jihadis stop and take an honest look at the true tenets of Islam and disavow their misuse of Islam to wage thuggery across the globe, then perhaps I will consider it proper and fitting to offer them a bit more than what I offer them today. Same with radical leftists of any stripe.
    “Whatever are you so afraid of, coldwarrior? That some bearded “jihadis” will strap on bombs and wander into your local mall? Are you afraid that the “jihadis” are so powerful that they will turn 225 years of Constitutional government into sharia law? Are you afraid your women will have to start wearing burqas and that you’ll be forced to wear a beard and pray toward Mecca five times a day?”
    In Truth, Renko, yes, I am afraid, and vigilant as well, about the possibllity of subjugation by these same forces,m and am also vigilant against those who defend them. It is their clearly expressed desire and vow, their chosen jihad, backed up by an abundance of fatwah’s, and an overabundance of documented mayhem and murder across the globe that leads me to this conclusion.
    Their real power, the real threat, of the jihadis and the radical left of the world is their ability to enlist, sway, and use millions across the globe as useful idiots. By incrementalism they may achieve their statred goals in a more “humane” methodology. It is happening already in this nation and in others as well, as the non-jihadi populations are lead to believe that a little bit of radicalism isn’t such a bad thing…after all, they are only college kids and maybe if we offer jihadis an olive branch they will suddenly stop dead in their tracks and stop their jihad.
    So long as the Renko’s of the world engage in moral equivalency the threat of radicalism and radical Islam in particular grows stronger.
    When they came for the Jews, I did nothing for I was not a Jew. When they came for the homosexuals, I did nothing because I was not a homosexual. When they came for the educators, the merchants, the laborers, the free men who espoused theologies and “ism’s” that were not my own, I did nothing because I was not one of them. Then, they came for me…and there was no one left to do anything about it…
    Now, back to the whole point of this thread…
    …the veterans of PO Box 1142:
    After going over again the Wapo article and the CNN clips, I find their statements about both their work during the War and their comments about how “interrogation” as it is supposedly allegedly practiced today to be nothing more than non-sequitor.
    Yes, in the passivity and relative comfort of Fort Hunt they were able to get German scientists to talk about their work prior to capture, but they had already passive candidates to interview.
    These Germans were culturally quite similar to nearly a quarter of the US population at the time of their capture. No great cultural divides to surmount, none at all. They obtained valid and vital information that enabled the US and chosen allies to make great leaps forward in aircraft design, in rocketry, in weapons development and in other fields that turned out to be vital as we confronted the Soviets.
    To compare, for even a moment, their achievements under passive conditions, dealing with information that would not result in the immediate immolation of large populations or formations of US and allied forces, seems to be nothing more than a WaPo and CNN attempt to use them and their noble efforts as nothing more than an opportunity to jab Bush once more and to jab our present military yet again.
    Usng 80 and 90 year-old men to try to smear Gitmo? Pathetic. Merely, pathetic.

  134. Renko,
    Will you acknowledge the fact that at least 30 people have been released taht we know ofhave been found subseuquently on the battlefield fighting our troops. And since we don’t actually track the whereabouts of people once they’re out of our custody.
    But whatever the number, do you acknowledge the fact?
    If so, then your whole assertion is utter bunk. beucase the fact that people who have been released have been found on the battlefield subsequently means that they in fact were released in the first place, meaning that the various prisons have a mechanism in place to dtermine whether people should stay in the prison or not.
    And are these the only 30 people ever released from those prisons? Of course not. THOUSANDS have been released.
    Therefore, if they are determined to in fact be “innocent” and by that, meaning no longer a threat they are released. What is the mechanism whereby this occurs?
    Now, are they the same protections afforded to american cititzens during peace time, with the same rights to attorneys, the rights trial by jury, with miranda warnings and whatnot. OF course not, but one, these are occuring outside of the country, and two taking place in the middle of a war. Name one war where any of these rules were applied with the same degree of protection in the middle of a warzone. It doesn’t happen.

  135. When the jihadis stop killing innocents across the globe, when they no longer behead or stone to death those among the population who do not cling to Islam

    So you are afraid of a small band of bearded criminals; afraid that somehow they will overcome the US military, all US law enforcement, and 225 years of constitutional law– a constitution which forbids the creation of a state religion.
    You do realize that reeks of pure, bed-wetting cowardice, don’t you?

    Same with radical leftists of any stripe.

    Radical rightists, such as the Tim McVeighs and the Eric Rudolphs and the fine folk of Stormfront and the Council of Conservative Citizens, though, will get a pass from you.
    Won’t they? Don’t they?

    When they came for the Jews, I did nothing for I was not a Jew. When they came for the homosexuals, I did nothing because I was not a homosexual. When they came for the educators, the merchants, the laborers, the free men who espoused theologies and “ism’s” that were not my own, I did nothing because I was not one of them. Then, they came for me…and there was no one left to do anything about it…

    Nice quote of Pastor Niemoller there– but since you are an American, did you stand up for the blacks who were enslaved for hundreds of years then oppressed by law for a hundred more and remain second class citizens in the United States to this day?
    I suspect though, that you only consider white Christians to really be people.
    “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” — Oliver Cromwell
    Renko

  136. When the jihadis stop killing innocents across the globe, when they no longer behead or stone to death those among the population who do not cling to Islam with the same vigor they hold, when the jihadis no longer see every infidel as a legitimate target for their bombs, kidnappings and murders, when the jihadis stop and take an honest look at the true tenets of Islam and disavow their misuse of Islam to wage thuggery across the globe, then perhaps I will stop” being a war-mongering, torture enthusiast who longs to do to Muslims (including innocent harmless civilians) what they do, not to me directly, because I’m not enlisting to fight in the war I demand be fought etc. etc. ad nauseum.

  137. A small band of bearded criminals?
    With the Grace of God I certainly hope that one day soon the jihadis will indeed by a small group of bearded criminals.
    I have a personal stake in all of this. I am a former soldier in the US Army. I am also a retired intelligence career officer in an organization that holds “technical legality” in only 7 countries of the world. I am a Roman Catholic. [I have dabbled in Reform Catholicism in my youth, becoming a member of the ALCA Lutheran Church, but have since returned to my Roman Catholic roots, and was not beheaded or stoned in public because I chose to seek my own path to God.]
    Should this “small band of beared criminals” succeed one could measure my lifetime in hours not days or years. I have chosen to not surrender to Islam. Thus I am already additionally marked for death since I will not accept dhimmitude.
    But, what’s your point Renko? I take it you are not from around here, are ya? What is indeed your point?
    Do you really believe that the massive (only about 1.8 million strong) US military is hell bent on conquering the world? We are already outnumbered and out gunned. Military conquest is not something that is high on our agenda. If it were then that 1.8 million total figure for ALL Americans in uniform in all services across the globe would be on a much higher order, perhaps 10 to 20 million, a paltry amount, really from a population of a mere 300 million.
    Yes, Eric Rudolph should burn in hell, but not so much as a Timothy McVeigh, and he not so much as an Osama Bin Ladin. Each are murderers. It is all now simply a matter of scale. Sort of like asking a girl in a bar if she’d have sex for a million dollars, and getting an affirmative response, and then asking her for sex for $20. Her response being I am calling her a whore. A whore? This has already been established. We are merely dickering over price.
    Ideally, I’d prefer Saudi Arabians to act as openly at home in Jiddah and Riyadh, even in Mecca and Medina, as most of the ruling Saudi elites and their thousands of rich cousins and Princes behave abroad. For some perverse reason, thus, Osama and I are on the same page of music vis-a-vis the Saudis. They are whores. Have spent too many hours on too many flights across South Asia and across Europe dealing with drunk Saudi officials and Princes on flights who had to drink their “duty free” before landing since alcohol was forbidden by the Koran and Sharia.
    I prefer the open secular way, despite being a Roman Catholic, and I promise to not behead any Saudi or Moslem who does not accept secularism and free markets and free and open societies, emancipation of women, free access to Eastern and Western non-Islamic books. I don’t believe for a moment Osmama would be so generous.
    But I fail to see your point, Renko, save for your constant bantering about moral equivalency and gulags and tossing about other radical chic invective.
    If you wish to stay at home, comfortable beneath your bedsheets, while rude men fight and die so you can enjoy those same bedsheets…go right ahead. It has been thus since long long before Agincourt. The overall threat to you is the same as the threat to me. You are non-Islamic. You may be a Deist. You may be an Atheist. You may be a foot-washing Baptist. But they’ll subjugate you and probably kill you if you refuse to submit.
    Same as all the rest of those wonderful radicals and members of the avant garde of revolutions over the centuries. Killing them first was and is always the highest priority once the revolution came.

  138. Will you acknowledge the fact that at least 30 people have been released taht we know ofhave been found subseuquently on the battlefield fighting our troops. And since we don’t actually track the whereabouts of people once they’re out of our custody.
    But whatever the number, do you acknowledge the fact?

    Clearly Maher Arar was eventually released. Clearly the Tipton Three were released. But the only evidence that any released individuals “returned to the battlefield” is provided by your government, which, at this moment in history, is no more credible than Mark Furman.
    Beyond this– did any of these four men ever have any chance to confront their accusers, examine the evidence against them, have their day before a judicial authority?
    And just exactly how much suffering did they endure during their time in detainment?
    Simply because some are released (there are costs associated with keeping people on ice for indeterminate periods, after all) does not ipso facto mean that they were accorded any rights whatsoever, including that of habeas corpus.
    Without this evaluation of the facts of every individual in detention (and, as evidenced by Maher Arar’s arrest and by Jose Padilla’s, they are not all captured “on the field of battle”), how do you know they are guilty of anything? And if you do not know that they are guilty, is it unreasonable to believe that at least some (four by name, above) are innocent men?
    How many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice?
    Renko

  139. If being afraid of a small percentage of the world’s 1 point something billion Muslims makes me a coward then count me among the bed-wetters.
    Of course I see my reaction as an objective assesment of the real danger we face. Now, if Christians, atheists … or commenters who quote 17th century writers believed it their duty to saw the heads off of innocent people and die for their cause then I’d be afraid of them too.

  140. With the Grace of God I certainly hope that one day soon the jihadis will indeed by a small group of bearded criminals.

    Well, let’s see.
    They have no navy– maybe a few boats stuffed with C4, but certainly no blue water fleet.
    They have no air force– they got lucky with a few guys with boxcutters who took advantage of the fact that no one had ever used a hijacked plane as a weapon before (and do you believe any group of airline passengers would let anyone take their flights over without a fight, ever again?).
    They don’t have any kind of long range delivery systems for any of the highly destructive weapons that they don’t have.
    As a professional intelligence officer, you would surely understand that an entity’s capabilities must also be evaluated along with their desires.
    The “jihadis,” a small subset of Muslim culture worldwide, simply cannot project power in sufficient quantity to create a serious threat to any Western government.
    This is not to say that they cannot explode a bomb here or there; history shows clearly that anyone sufficiently determined (Eric Rudolph? Tim McVeigh?) can pull off a criminal act.
    Impose sharia law? Eliminate 225 years of Constitutional law? Eliminate 800 years of traditional English common law?
    Your fears are simply not rational.
    Renko

  141. If being afraid of a small percentage of the world’s 1 point something billion Muslims makes me a coward then count me among the bed-wetters.
    Of course I see my reaction as an objective assesment of the real danger we face. Now, if Christians, atheists … or commenters who quote 17th century writers believed it their duty to saw the heads off of innocent people and die for their cause then I’d be afraid of them too.

    America’s preeminent terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan, spent most of the last century and a half terrorizing American citizens; lynching, burning, and driving them from their homes like Slobodan Milosevic.
    They are also most resolutely Christian.
    Is there no reason to fear them, either?
    Renko

  142. If you wish to stay at home, comfortable beneath your bedsheets, while rude men fight and die so you can enjoy those same bedsheets…go right ahead.

    I think you’ve listened to Colonel Jessup’s speech one time too many. And there’s something… Freudian in your reference to “bedsheets.”
    I always thought of the Klan as those pointy-hatted fellows who get out of bed in the middle of the night and take their sheets with them.

    It has been thus since long long before Agincourt.

    Agincourt was a dispute between Henry V and Charles VI over just who was going to be capo di tutti capos. You could even make the case that Good King Harry’s men were the invaders on that long ago St. Crispin’s Day. But were any of the soldiers fighting to defend their people? Hardly. They were fighting to defend the rights of their kings.

    The overall threat to you is the same as the threat to me. You are non-Islamic. You may be a Deist. You may be an Atheist. You may be a foot-washing Baptist. But they’ll subjugate you and probably kill you if you refuse to submit.

    Tell you what. When they actually show up, I’ll happily expend my own powder and shot against them.
    Until then, I will keep my weapons clean and my ammunition dry against the day when white, Christian Americans decide once again to embark on a path of ethnic cleansing.
    Renko

  143. Their capabilites do not belong in the conventional warfare arena. Anyone who makes statements about their not having a blue water navy nor a force projection air force is proving beyond all doubt their lack of knowledge about the AQ-inspired jihad against the West, and the conduct of assymetric warfare as well.
    The assymetry of their effort is their strength. One car bombing a day over a period of less than one week in all the major Western and major Third World capitals would be sufficient for them to sway to their side or cause to surrender dozens of governments and millions of citizens across the globe, gather strength beyond present imagination and pave the way for capitulation by one government after another as they try to placate the jihadis.
    They caused a major act of war in NYC and DC with thousands of deaths on 9/11, but they are still in the nascent mode as world threats historically go. Still large, too large, still potent, too potent, but nascent and disorganized, and on the run in far more locales than was evinced in 2001. Osama attacked too soon. Bad judgement.
    Their capabilities, to use a too often used cliche, require them to be successful once in a while. It requires us to be successful all of the time, 100%. That is the most fundamental tenet of terrorism. Demonstrate that a government, say in Madrid, is incapable of protecting its own citizens and you sway or compel to surrender not only a government but a citizenry as well.
    Their capabilities are largely unknown. Their intent is well known. This is no organized conventional threat. It is a movement.
    Only by killing off members of that movement, making belonging to or supporting that movement such a costly activity on the part of those belonging or supporting the same of such magnitude can there be any hope of demonstrating the apostasy in their cause among those who would join them or support them. Taking it to them, one by one, or in large groups, and allowing the local populations see and understand that joining the AQ-inspired jihad is a self-imposed death sentence is but one method of assymetric warfare that has shown good results.
    Such forces their hand, and their resources. The most recent set of threats against Bhutto in Pakistan is a good example. By doing so, they have succeeded in uniting parts of Pakistan to a level that was impossible just a few months ago. Should the AQ-inspired jihadis succeed in killing Bhutto, they will lose Pakistan completely as both a viable target and as a home and safe haven. The same has happened in the Philippines. The same is happening in other locales as we speak.

  144. Renko, it’s obvious that you haven’t spent much time (if any) in the U.S.
    There is absolutely no comparison to be made between today’s KKK and the Islamists. The most recent gruesome racist attack that I can recall was the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. nine years ago. Two of those three murderers are on death row (which probably upsets you) while one of them got a life sentence. But how can that be so if American jurors are the bunch of bigots that Renko has read they are? Those murderers were not in the KKK. And if it makes you feel any better I cried when I read the story.
    I’d be curious to know where you’re from.

  145. Renko:
    You ask me if I have seen evidence of their guilt? Have you seen evidence of their innocence? We can do this all day.
    I get it. Dick and George are sitting around, shooting the breeze and Dick says to George, “Hey George what do you want to do today?”
    And George being the evil dummie that he is says, “I want to round up a few hundred innocent men and put them in an expensive and high profile detention center in Cuba for no reason other than the sheer nasty fun of taking crap from idiots who don’t know what the hell they are talking about.”
    Think about that. And torture, well back in the day when Uncle Joe and Mao and the Viet Cong were on the job torture was torture, now it is humiliation, 50 degree temps. etc.
    Unless the perpetrators are AlQaida and the victims are Iraqi children who have been baked in an oven and then it is justifiable.
    But back to the point, what do we do with these people? The people who demand they be released are not the people who will be held responsible either for what happens to them or what they do.

  146. BTW, the KKK stayed here. They did not take their crimes elsewhere. If they had taken their crimes elsewhere, if for instance they had killed thousands of Italians in an attack on the Vatican I have feeling the Italian government would have been a tad pissy about it.

  147. Anyone who makes statements about their not having a blue water navy nor a force projection air force is proving beyond all doubt their lack of knowledge about the AQ-inspired jihad against the West, and the conduct of assymetric warfare as well.

    Asymmetric warfare generally boils down to guerilla warfare. Other than in Iraq, where is the US involved in asymmetric warfare? And for that matter, why is the US involved in guerilla warfare there? Could it be that the US invaded a sovereign nation who had committed no act of war or aggression against us, and the people of that nation take up arms against the US in exactly the same way that Americans would take up arms against any invader of their country?
    How can these asymmetric warriors succeed if we don’t take the targets over tothem?

    Their capabilities, to use a too often used cliche, require them to be successful once in a while. It requires us to be successful all of the time, 100%. That is the most fundamental tenet of terrorism. Demonstrate that a government, say in Madrid, is incapable of protecting its own citizens and you sway or compel to surrender not only a government but a citizenry as well.

    And so you believe that by exploding some bombs somewhere or publising video of grisly murder, they can bring down the entire US government. AND eliminate any resistance from the American people.
    My, you have a very low opinion of your fellow-citizens.
    Once again, the “jihadis” simply have no capability to destroy the US government and bring us under “sharia law,” however much they may wish it so. Further, those who engage in violence in furtherance of that goal are a.) few in number, in comparison to the population of the United States, and b.) vanishingly small in comparison to the number of Muslims around the world.
    None of that matters, though, if you believe that all Muslims are guilty– as you appear to.
    Renko

  148. You ask me if I have seen evidence of their guilt? Have you seen evidence of their innocence? We can do this all day.

    Indeed we can. The difference between us is that you would rather err on the side of “kill them all, God knows his own,” and I do not.
    Renko

  149. And considering the kind of racism, injustice, genocide, we see every day in this world, the United States has nothing to apologize for.
    Once I was having a discussion about this with a European and he started going on about the Indians. I asked him if he thought the Conquistadors were Americans. He had never even thought about it.
    The slave traders, the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, the Reign of Terror, the Cultural Revolution, the Soviet Gulags, the forced Ukrainian famine, the massacre of the Armenians, the Holocaust, the hundreds of thousands dead at Saddam’s hands, the state sponsored killing of gays and scarlet women in Iran, the Taliban, the Rwandan massacre, the Iron fist of the soviets in Eastern Europe, the rape of Nanking, all of these things have something in common, Americans were not responsible for these crimes.
    However, we did feed tens of millions in the first world war, we carried out the Berlin Airlift, the Marshall Plan, we sat on the DMZ and protected South Korea for decades, we feed, shelter and clothe more people than any country in the history of the world.
    But that does not matter, after all there is global warming and Coca Cola and Gitmo.

  150. Renko:
    I never said a freaking thing about killing them all. In fact if we wanted to kill a large number of them all we would have to do is send them home and they would be dead.
    Idiot.

  151. The thing is Renko is assuming that since everything the US does is bad then all its enemies must be good. And so if the US says these people are terrorists, then of course they are pure as the driven snow.
    Tell me, why is it we never hear anyone bitch about the Israeli soldiers Hamas grabs. They can keep these guys locked up forever and no one gives a damn.
    But then again, Israel and the US are the default bad guys and the terrorists are the default freedom fighters standing up to the fascists blah blah blah.
    Seen this bad movie so many times I can’t believe there are still people out there gullible and naive enough to buy it.

  152. Renko, it’s obvious that you haven’t spent much time (if any) in the U.S.
    There is absolutely no comparison to be made between today’s KKK and the Islamists. The most recent gruesome racist attack that I can recall was the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. nine years ago. Two of those three murderers are on death row (which probably upsets you) while one of them got a life sentence. But how can that be so if American jurors are the bunch of bigots that Renko has read they are? Those murderers were not in the KKK. And if it makes you feel any better I cried when I read the story.

    Let me answer a question with a question: are you black? You are clearly American, but what are your connections with black people? Have you lived with stories of what happened to your people over the years? And continues to happen?
    James Byrd was not an aberration; his death was a continuation.
    I use the KKK as an example simply because they are an organized group. As are the Aryan Nations, the Christian Identity movement… right down to the Council of Conservative Citizens, the heirs to the White Citizens Councils of the mid-20th century.
    Exactly who they are is not the point– the point is that they are a “movement”, to quote coldwarrior, a movement grown root and branch in the fertile soil of the United States of America.
    Terrorism, to black Americans, is not a new concept.
    Renko

  153. In fact the only people who said anything about killing them all were people who were talking about what is illegal and what is legal. Renko here, being the great believer in the rule of someone’s law {who he can not say} said that we should stay in accordance with Geneva. It was pointed out that killing combatants in the field is not illegal. That is a fact.

  154. The thing is Renko is assuming that since everything the US does is bad then all its enemies must be good. And so if the US says these people are terrorists, then of course they are pure as the driven snow.
    Play with straw much?
    Or did I not explicitly say that clearly at least SOME of the people detained/tortured/executed by the US were guilty.
    The problem is that SOME is not ALL. And that brings me back to my question:
    How many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice, Comrade?
    Renko

  155. Never once stated that all Moslems are guilty, Renko.
    My son, a young adult, has converted to Sunni Islam. I live in a community that has a large population of practicing Moslems, mostly Sunni but a few Shi’a, and within a short drive/walk from my home is one of the largest Mosques in the United States. I eat with them, have stayed awake all night long in the past weeks to enjoy Ramadan with many Moslems. I have lived among them in their own countries. I have Koran given to me by a Moslem many years ago on my bedside table. I read it more often than the Bible and I am sure Pope Benedict will understand.
    Just because I recognize a threat from radical jihadi Ilsam in no way connotes that I am anti-Moslem. That assertion is the last refuge of someone who has no further argument to make or back up with fact.
    Asd to the jihadis “winning” here in the US? A possibility, not impossible, but not something that will happen over the next decade. In other countries the potential for jihadi victory is far more acute and well within the realm of possibility.
    A few miles up the road and across the lake the Canadians are now dealing with a separate sharia court system within Canada. Incrementalism. We here in the States have ONE Constitution that has served us well for over two centuries. If Moslems come to live in the United States as legal residents or as naturalized citizens, that same Constitution applies to them as well as myself and all other Americans. Sharia law does not take precedence over the Constitution in this country, but there are still those who are trying to make it so. The Somali cab drivers in Minneapoolis-St. Paul have tried. CAIR tries constantly to do the same. Other groups over the past few years have made similar attempts to abrogate our system of laws within our country and superimpose sharia in their stead.
    The VC and the NVA had no capability to destroy US forces in Vietnam. Quite the contrary. But that war was “lost” here at home long long before we turned our back on South Vietnam in 1975.
    The same can easily apply in the present setting. Appease, enable incrementalism, placate until our own system of government our own Constitution is relegated to nothing more than a pile of worthless paper, and the jihadis can come and go as they please…the Gitmo thingie is one example of their trying to usurp our safeguards and gather allies in the process, one of which is you, Renko, knowingly or unknowingly, you have made yourself an ally of the jihad.
    I have great confidence in the American people, my fellow citizens, until leadership assumes to know better than them and kowtows to internal and external threats in the name of political correctness and appeasement.
    “And so you believe that by exploding some bombs somewhere or publising video of grisly murder, they can bring down the entire US government. AND eliminate any resistance from the American people.”
    I most certainly do. There is already a plethora of evidence to show this happpening across the nation and the globe. The Left has capitalized on this…MoveOn and Code Pink and others have made it fashionable to claim the US government is the real bad guy and the jihadis are simply misunderstood small groups of bearded criminals. Many people from across the nation and across the globe parrot this theme at every opportunity, using up badnwidth and hijacking blog threads in their pursuit of getting this US is the bad guy mnessage out. Ring a bell?
    I have been invited to a wedding in Amman this Winter by a friend who went to school here and lives nearby. I’ve met his parents, met his birde to be, have shared tea and broken bread with all of them many times. Due to health reasons I cannot attend. Wish I could. Have to show Jordanians in an Amman neighborhood that all Americans are not anti-Moslem. Contrary to your assertions and assumptions.

  156. Renko:
    You sanctimonious little prick. There are African Americans fighting in Iraq right now and people like you have no problem treating them like war criminals.
    There is an African American running for President. Tell me, what is the chance that a woman could even walk out in public without her veil in Iran, much less run for President?
    There is an African American woman running the State Department.
    America is far from perfect, and there will always be demagogues like Al Sharpton out there trying to use racism to make themselves more important.
    But there are also a growing number of African Americans like journalist Juan Williams, who has recently written a book called “Enough”. Williams is demanding African American community leaders look forward and demand more of and from the black community. Victimology has not served them well.
    As for what I am, I am part Indian, I am part German, Irish, English and I had a great grandmother of questionable race named Jemima. I am an American.

  157. If you had ANY indication of real American history instead of your fashioned histronics you would understand fully that almost ALL Americans loathe the KKK, the Knights of the Camelia, the Arryan Nation and other rightwing fruitcake but still dangerous organization that exist here in the States. You also have the most slight insight into a multicultural multiethnic society we have here in the States. One doesn’t need to be Black to understand the enormity of the Black experience. Some of us marched for justice back in the day hand in hand with Blacks who were seeking an equal place at the table.
    Where you from, Renko? Please share. I wish to measure your realm of experience. What I see from your rantings is an indoctrinated child, growing up in a controlled setting, not allowed access to anything other than officially approved books and texts. Your summations of various points of our history (past and more recent) demonstrates this quite vividly.
    You are no dummy. You have a bit of faculty in the language and idioms of this Nation. But, your perspective, your blickpunkt, is skewed.
    So, where are you from? And why precisely, are you here?

  158. There was no realistic chance that Adolf Hitler could cross the Atlantic with sufficient force to defeat and occupy the United States, but when he declared war we took him seriously.
    AlQaida declared war on the US back in the 90’s and we pretty much ignored them until that Tuesday morning when the Towers fell and chaos ensued.
    Enough is enough.

  159. My guess is there is more diversity in my little rural Indiana town of 4,500 than there is Renko’s country, whatever it is.
    We have hispanics, African American, Chinese, a few Germans, etc.

  160. Terrye,
    A few Germans? What part of Indiana could that be? Seems the majority of this part of Ohio, just across the border, is full of Germans. That is where our wagon wheel broke back in the day. Others made it to the Hoosier State, lots of them. Must be from up around Gary.

  161. My son, a young adult, has converted to Sunni Islam. I live in a community that has a large population of practicing Moslems, mostly Sunni but a few Shi’a, and within a short drive/walk from my home is one of the largest Mosques in the United States. I eat with them, have stayed awake all night long in the past weeks to enjoy Ramadan with many Moslems. I have lived among them in their own countries. I have Koran given to me by a Moslem many years ago on my bedside table. I read it more often than the Bible and I am sure Pope Benedict will understand.

    I apologize, coldwarrior. I was clearly mistaken. It is hard to hate people when they become part of your family– or your family becomes part of them.
    I still think you overstate the jihadi threat; but my thought that you were anti muslim turns out to be wrong.
    Renko

  162. Just in my little town, there are only a few. A lot of the locals come from Welsh stock. Interesting how people came all the way over here and ended up in a county that is a lot like the place they left behind.
    A little to the south of me is where the Germans are. I know a lot of Amish, but they are Dutch, not German.

  163. And I certainly do not hate all Muslims. If I did, why would I support an effort to bring democracy or representative government to a Muslim nation? We could always find some strong man and just look the other way.
    When I see the pictures of the children I only hope that they have a future. All children deserve a chance.

  164. If you had ANY indication of real American history instead of your fashioned histronics you would understand fully that almost ALL Americans loathe the KKK, the Knights of the Camelia, the Arryan Nation and other rightwing fruitcake but still dangerous organization that exist here in the States. You also have the most slight insight into a multicultural multiethnic society we have here in the States.

    Coldwater, I have listened to conservatives rail against “multiculturalism” for the past fifteen years or more. Unfortunately, most do not recognize that multiculturalism arose in response to the dominant ideology of the United states– white supremacy.
    I do not say this as a “gotcha” or even to diminish the very real “good things” that the United States has accomplished.
    The biggest reason I love my country is that flawed as it is; born of an original sin– this nation has by fits and starts moved closer and closer to the principles advocated in the Declaration.
    Nonetheless, ethnic cleansing, lynching, extrajudicial execution, are all part of the American experience.
    I understand, appreciate and even agree that most Americans loathe the KKK etc.
    But how many white Americans wanted to stand with the Jena 6?
    Damned few.
    And as I’m sure you’ll agree that a few determined people are perfectly capable of creating enormous bloodshed.
    To answer those who are curious– I was born in the United States, in the South, two years after Emmett Till was murdered; my father who was a WWII veteran of a segregated unit.
    I speak of America’s history and it’s “negro problem” because I have been a witness to it; a victim of it; a survivor of it.
    I have lived with white Americans my entire life; learning to understand and navigate the dominant culture is a prerequisite to survival for black men.
    I daresay I know a bit more about the black experience than Terrye could conceivably comprehend.
    My view of conservatism as an ideology in the US is that what it seeks to conserve is white supremacy. At base, at fundament, this is its reason for existence.
    That, of course, is merely an opinion and I will not expend phosphors to explain or defend it. Having admitted my negritude, any argument that I make will be devalued by some (Terrye, are you listening?) and therefore there is no reason to carry on.
    I came to this discussion with a genuine question. My personal philosophy has always been, I thought, consonant with the intent of the Founders– they set up the Constitution such that any prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused was guilty of a crime; and they stacked the deck against the prosecution because (I believe) that like I do, they would prefer that ten guilty men go free than that one innocent man be deprived of his liberty– or his life.
    And so I have asked– “How many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice, Comrade?”
    It’s only a rhetorical question, unless one of those innocent men is your father– your brother– or your son.
    Renko

  165. Conservatism in no way is an ideology that intends to preserve white supremacy. Real Conservatives firmly believe in our God-given Rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and firmly believe in the rule of law, the protection of life and property, and providing to our posterity these same Gifts.
    We are not the “good massah.” We abhor the “good massah.” Why? Because the “good massah” deprives those under his benevolent care their dignity.
    No one should be under our care, benevolent or otherwise. Democratic Party politics over the past fifty years has strived hard to remain the “good massah.”
    Along the way they caused at least two generations bound in servitude to the Democrat Party, and to the largesse and noblesse olige of the government.
    Such runs fundamentally contrary to everything real honest to God Conservtives stand for.
    There were two things that forever removed me from my youthful membership as a proud leftist radical in America.
    The first was being involved with Civil Rights among other nobel causes and then witnessing the reaction to the assassination of Martin Luther King, and saw too many white radicals suddenly return to their white roots, and having a number of friends show their true colors…racists as the day is long when the riots started, in Cleveland, in Detroit.
    These were the same people who painted signs, marched at the courthouse, cajoled any and all to make donations…yet when the bullets started flying they had a rapid change of heart and “them colored folk” were to blame for all the destruction.
    Not saying all or even a large segment did this, but too many of those I had grown close to did.
    The second was the Soviet invasion of Czecholsovakia, when the Left, the radicals, to a man, all of them I knew, lived among, got stoned with, praised Brezhnev and the ghastly putdown of Czech freedom…under the guise of keeping socilaist unity at all costs.
    That was in 1968.
    In 1972, I voted for Nixon, so opposed and disgusted by the radical chic of the McGovernites and the Martha’s Vinyard crowd of Democrats and those on the Left who had already shown of what stuff they were made.
    I received my draft notice in 1973, and stayed on active duty for six years, almost all of them abroad. Finished college, joined the Agency. Used my abilities learned from being a solid radical in earlier years to good advantage for me, and for my government. Spent most of the rest of my time with the Agency abroad, in most locations doing the armpit circuit, a lot of dusty and dirty Third World nations that hadn’t a chance at becoming other than a Third World nation. Saw to many on the Left, again, embrace Castro, Che, Bob Mugabe, Mao, Kim Il-song and other socialist brethren who used socialism as a mere cover for their own wanton ambitions, and to hell with the people in their charge. Saw a lot of needless death along the way. Not from us, but from those regimes who would rather kill their own than allow them the most essential of liberties we here take for granted.
    As I grew older I became more Conservative…not necessarily Republican, but most assuredly not Democrat.
    I have known and worked with, lived with and among, a vast number of Black Americans, in uniform and in the civil service, who are very Conservative, and unfortunately this is a secret known only to them and their closest friends, and expressed only in secret at the ballot box. Why? Because being Conservative is not a Black thing. Being Conservative is, as you attest, is considered prolonging white supremacy.
    The “multiculturalism” many Conservatives, real Conservatives, rail against is that which requires dismantling of those institutions under Law which have time after time saved this nation from itself. Hence, our dislike for the Balkanization of the nation. The dislike for equivalency regardless of the historical record. The dislike for the subjugation of our fellow Americans under the “good massah’s” on the Left who pander to the Black community, among others, in their pursuit for power…and upon obtaining that power, toss off these same people like they really didn’t need them after all.
    Look across government over the past 8 years…from Cabinet level down to the GS-15 level and you will see a far far more diverse population involved in decision-making within our government than has ever existed in our history. Under the previous Administration? The one over which America’s so-called First Black President reigned? Sure had an explosion of employment of Blacks and other minorities at the GS-5 through GS-7 level, and few if any jobs of substance were provided to minorities unless there was a White overseer close at hand, even within Ron Brown’s Department of Commerce. But actual decision making? By Cabinet level Blacks? On matters of grave national well-being? None. The “good massah” wouldn’t ‘low that sorta thing.
    Hence, Renko, my still growing dislike for those on the left and those who parrot their notions and promulgate their ideas.
    I have seen what they have wrought close up and personal. I find it disgusting.
    On a personal level, I ask you…in and among your friends, what would be the response IF you were to state that you wanted to see Fred Thompson in the White House in ’08.
    That response in and of itself would or should provide a ready answer to how the Left maintains its control as a “good massah.”
    My God-given, not government provided, Right inalienable, to Life, liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and my contentment that my life and well-being and property will not be confiscated by Government without due process of Law, Renko, are fundamental to my core. They should likewise be to yours.
    By the way, haven’t heard the term “negritude” since the last time I read some of the writings of Léopold Sédar Senghor. That dates me a bit.

  166. We may quibble about how vast that majority is; but I thank you for having the honor to at least admit that you are willing to sacrifice innocent men.
    Renko
    *********************
    But Renko, he’ll NEVER be willing to sacrifice as many INNOCENT people as YOU are.
    And he is ONLY willing to sacrifice A FEW in the battle to defeat the terrorists, while your sacrifices are for the purposes of allowing the terrorists all the rope they need to SUCCEED.
    And you are clearly willing for them to be as numerous as it takes for the terrorists to win.

  167. Ah, then we are in complete agreement.
    So long as we also are prepared to hold every clinic bomber, every armed anti-immigrant vigilante, every shooter; every Eric Rudolph and every Timothy McVeigh– let us also hold them responsible for their own actions.
    And as long as we’re at it– is it not long past time to hold Osama Bin Ladin personally responsible for his actions? Why is he not in custody?
    Renko
    ***********************
    No. We are NOT in Agreement – the clinic bmbers, Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph have all gone to trial without any Conservatives fighting FOR them for anything but a FAIR TRIAL and a hanging.
    However, the Liberal traitors are venerated by you, instead of tried for Treason, like Hanoi John after the Paris “peace talks” with VietCong leadership, or Hanoi Jane and her visit to the Hanoi Hilton, in spite of testimony by American soldiers from the Vietnam conflict, or for Bill Clinton for instigating riots in London on Foreign soil against America for the Vietnam War – TREASON, also, and for Toady Kennedy aiding and abetting them in those endeavors, for McDermot and comrads human shielding for Saddam Hussein, Nancy Pelosi condeming American actions in war from a Middle Eastern TV station, and Dennis Kucinich, doing the same, etc etc etc etc, AD NAUSEUM.
    We are not and never will be in agreement on ANYTHING.
    Because you would rather sacrifice untold numbers of human lives than to hold ONE GUILTY PERSON ACCOUNTABLE for their own actions.
    You do NOT believe in Justice or healing or THRIVING communities.
    You cannot, because you refuse to consider their needs over your bleeding heart AFFINITY for TERRORISTS – and the two things aren’t compatible.

  168. Terrorism, to black Americans, is not a new concept.
    Renko
    &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
    There have been bigger slaughters on European grounds and British soil.
    None of the 60 million Stalin killed were likely to have been black or brown.
    Hitler’s masses were usually “white”-skinned.
    Muslim Pirates did their damage, as well, among many others.
    Blacks and browns have no corner on the market of having endured slaughterings.
    You are a very pathetic creature to justify the terrorists with these ramblings.
    What we see in you is someone horrendously frustrated at not getting your hands onthe Gitmo prisoners to work a guilty conscience on the poor creatures for not having died an “honorable” muslim death in the battle field, and thus coerce them into returning to the battle field to cleanse themselves of the filth of allowing themselves to be living prisoners in luxury, for “propaganda” for the filthy Americans.
    Isn’t that so, Renko. You are having conniption fits over their life of luxury at Gitmo, well out of all the conflict, and living peaceful lives AT THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY. AND NOT CONTRIBUTING TO THEIR HOMELANDS’ BATTLE AGAINST AMERICA AND AGAINST DECENCY.
    Living far better there on a tropical isle with gourmet food and medical care, and entertainment, than you are, where YOU are.
    And you are jealous as hell of their sweet life free from the coersion of their insane imams.

  169. Where does one begin, how about the real meaning of Ft. Hunt. When Reinhardt Gehlen, Hitler’s Eastern Front army intel chief came there in 1946; and offered up his files and the use of
    his personnel. Included amon were some of the
    most vicious War Criminals (Franz Six, Mengele,
    Eichmann’s deputy Brunner, Barbie et al who escaped justice for a generation or so, through
    their work with the Gehlen Org, and the Ratlines
    to South America. That’s the real meaning of Ft. Hunt. Some like Carl Oglesby, Christopher Simpson,
    Joe Conason, call it the real sin of the Cold War.
    The Tipton three, it turns their cries of innocence and non involvement with training camps,echoed by Winterbottam in his whitewash
    were somewhat incomplete. A new brain mapping
    type of lie detector, ferrited out their lies.
    Maher Arar’s fate, was the result of a Faustian
    Gehlen like deal with the Mukharabat which furnished a tip regarding Arar’s brother MB ties.
    The information of who has been released from Gitmo, like the Chechen recently ‘terminated’ by
    Russian security forces, or the Yemeni national of the famous Utaibi clan, recently prosecuted for preparing false documents to go to Iraq, can be found if you have the patience to look for it.
    The Saudis often release their detainees in a form
    of community service (there’s an example of this
    in the movie the Kingdom)real life example is the
    case of Ahmed Shayea; the attempted suicide bomber. Often I submit the rehabilitation fails because in a media, family & religious environment
    suffused with Wahhabi hatred against Westerners, Israelis and the 20th century itself, it’s easy to relapse. Ultimately, the Saud bargain with the
    descendants of Wahhab; will one day shatter with greater consequence than the Grand Siege, the 2003, 2004 bombing campaigns more. The same factors apply in Egypt, where Zawahiri, Seif al Adel, Hamza Rabia, Sheik Omar Rahman and the Milan prisoner, Mullah Abu Nasr & Ayub al Masri’s handiwork & has been seen.a perceived Salafi victory in Iraq will just encourage the Muslim brotherhood, and it’s offshoots in Hamas Gamaa Islamiya, & related groups will encourage them to spread their campaign. Rendition to these places under Clinton, regrettably was the only viable option
    to Cairo proper

  170. How many innocent men are you prepared to sacrifice to the Gulag, comrade?
    Renko
    &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
    How many millions MORE, than already are you willing to sacrifice to exploding buildings and busses and airplanes, to the wood shredders and acid vats, to the mass graves, and the metal tables in their front yards and muslim sword through their necks, the piano wire cutting off faces and other body parts, the stonings in soccer fields, the hangings over wearing apparel of choice of lifemates.
    That is the question. And you have answered.
    Because to you, NO INDIDEL IS “INNOCENT” and ALL “GOOD” MUSLIMS ARE, no matter how many INFIDELS THEY KILL. In fact, the more they kill the BETTER they are at being “GOOD” MUSLIMS. According to the Koran and the pedophiles who wrote it.

  171. Look at the nice treatment by the Saudis of the INNOCENT TERRORISTS from GITMO.
    Renko must be so proud. STRANGE HE DIDN’T MENTION THIS:
    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/
    Everyone’s Friends, the Saudis
    Sun, Oct 7, 2007 at 8:55:13 am PDT

    A little paid vacation for terrorists, courtesy of the ruling class: Report: Saudi Gitmo Detainees Get Gift.

    RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) – The Saudi Arabian government will temporarily release 55 prisoners recently transferred from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and will give each of them about $2,600 to celebrate the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, a newspaper reported Saturday.

  172. Let me answer a question with a question: are you black? You are clearly American, but what are your connections with black people? Have you lived with stories of what happened to your people over the years? And continues to happen?
    Ivan Renko, I’ll answer you but it would be nice of you to reciprocate.
    I’m white. I’m an American and like nearly everyone else I know here I’m capable of empathy. I don’t need to have dark skin to identify with someone who has been mistreated.
    Now. I been polite. I’ve answered your question — where are you from? After reading your thoughts on race relations in America I’m thinking it’s as if you’ve emerged from a time capsule after 50 years. No shame in being an outsider, you can always point out that your vantage point on the outside looking in is more objective than our own or some such nonsense.

  173. Conservatism in no way is an ideology that intends to preserve white supremacy. Real Conservatives firmly believe in our God-given Rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and firmly believe in the rule of law, the protection of life and property, and providing to our posterity these same Gifts.

    It was not my intent to return to this venue… but I could not not respond to this.
    Have conservatives renounced the teachings of Lee Atwater?

    Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps…?
    Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ – that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
    And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me – because obviously sitting around saying, ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.

    The underlying message of Ron Reagan’s announcement of his candidacy was clear to black people.
    Most white people I talk to (and I’ve talked to quite a few) have no idea of the significance of that choice of venue– almost every black person does.
    How about the father of modern conservatism… Orval Faubus?
    Barry Goldwater was an honorable man; but his principled opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 appealed to the segregationist Dixiecrats so much that it sucked them right out of the Democratic party to join the Republicans (How many people remember that Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond were both once Democrats?). Reagan cemented their loyalty when he launched his campaign from Philadelphia Mississippi.
    And that is sufficient. Black people have stayed away from conservatism in droves. Despite having a personally conservative, religious outlook black people have in the main rejected movement conservatism. Most conservatives deride this as evidence that black people are under the thrall of the lying Democrats; that Al “Tawana Brawley” Sharpton and Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson the “race hustling poverty pimps” have somehow deluded black people into rejecting the conservative message.
    Most conservatives simply cannot believe that black people have the intelligence to know their history, understand the ideology of politicians and the policies that derive therefrom, and evaluate the net impact on them, their families, and their communities.
    That is to say– we know conservatives. We hear their “dog-whistle” rhetoric loud and clear.
    We know you, and we do not trust you.
    Renko
    By the way, Cannoli- I think I answered your question in a previous post. Beyond the fact that I was born a US citizen and have lived in the US for fifty years, I will not add any specifics. -R

  174. Why don’t you read the comment policy before making assumptions?
    I looked, I swears, but I cannot find it.
    You’ve been commenting here for what, an hour?
    And that was exceptional how?
    For your information, I don’t edit out people’s comments for accuracy,
    okey dokey
    but if you’d bothered to read the policy,
    Where’s that again?
    you’d already know that. For your information, I was asleep in the 45 minutes or so that you demanded I rescue your butt in the comments section. I guess that’s no excuse, either.
    I didn’t demand a rescue; I simply asked why you didn’t participate in comments. Now I know that you participate though let’s see, shutting down a commenter that has criticized you, and then playing nice by putting the comments back in. That’s what Tim F. was talking about. We’ll see which ‘Ed’ I run into this evening.
    Nice to meet you , Ed. I’ll leave you to your less than informed and truly pro-torture commenters. The books I suggested are probably at your local library. Perhaps you could get one of your cabin boys to pick it up for you. 🙂
    Perhaps that last dig wasn’t fair, but hell, why not!

  175. Ed, Got this comment after posting your piece at FR.
    “I don’t know who you are, but I am a close relative of one of the WWII interrogators and I was present for all of the reunion events and I know all of those veterans.
    WHAT is your SOURCE when you say “most of them oppose the Iraq war”??? I know that two of them vocally oppose it, but please distinguish between their pride in having effectively and humanely extracted valuable information which saved thousands of lives and “opposing the Iraq war.”
    These gentlemen know, FIRSTHAND, the effect of a brutal dictator commandeering their own country. Most lost family members to Hitler.
    Do not put words in their mouths. If you are a closer source than me… that is to say, you have personally discussed the Iraq war with each and every one, then, please: correct me.”
    Care to respond, or just a troll, you think?
    Kind Regards,
    JDM

  176. Since a lot of people seem to want to equate the current WoT with WWII and the interrogation that existed then and now, why not also equate how the two wars were, and are, fought? During WWII we were “humane” enough not to torture people, yet we also firebombed entire cities which killed hundreds of thousands of people during those attacks, most of who were non-combatants. More people were killed in the firebombing of Tokyo in one night then died by both both atomic bombs, for example. Is that really a humane way to treat people?
    How can someone claim that we were humane in not torturing people yet could condone burning entire cities to the ground? Ask yourself this: Is it more humane to obtain information from people using torture that can, and does, lead to the capture and/or death of terrorist leaders and the disruption of their planes which prevents the deaths of hundreds and thousands of civilians, or is it more humane not to torture those people and having to resort to killing hundreds of thousands of people just to insure you hit the right targets?
    We could end the insurgency in Iraq in just a few weeks and with a minimal amount of American causalities if we were willing to use the “humane” tactics of WWII, but that would result in massive destruction and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Is that really more humane then what we are doing now?
    Let’s be realistic. Holding suspected terrorists without access to our civilian courts is a hell of a lot more humane then bombing their suspected locations in an attempt to stop them from carrying out attacks. We’re not going to be killing massive amounts of innocent civilians just by holding a few tens, or even a few hundred, suspected terrorists. Gitmo is actually a lot more humane than bombing runs.

  177. I would suggest that interrogating/interviewing someone in the safe confines of Fort Hunt is entirely different from being a little closer to the action. Or indeed, being in a position to need information quickly.
    It is my understanding that the latest iterration of the Geneva Convention (Which the US did not ratify) forbids phsycological torture. This has been read to include, threats. Is deception also out of the question?

  178. PS:
    I was reading a biography of Col. Bud Day the other day. Col. Day was in a North Vietnamese prison camp (The hanoi Hilton) for a number of years. Col. Day was against Senator McCain’s position on torture (Other former prisoners were as well but I cannot remember ther names). He said that it was blatently untrue that torture didn’t work and he and McCain knew this.

  179. I’d like to see this argument retired:
    “Is waterboarding torture? We use it to train our Navy SEALs and other commando units.”
    The reason special ops candidates are subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation, etc., is to train them to resist torture.

  180. jlewis,
    So then you’re saying that we’re torturing those attending SERE training. The problem is apparently much worse than at first appeared. Long before GITMO ever opened american soldiers were being TORTURED!!!!!

  181. In case this point has not already been made…we do not limit the use of “water boarding” to SEALs and other special forces units.
    ALL Navy/Marine Aircrew (enlisted and officer) must go to SERE school. Since Air Force personnel make some of the training videos, I’m sure Air Force personnel and Army aviators attend similar training.
    That means over the years HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of American military personnel have been exposed to the “water board”. Not just the elite SOF troops.

  182. swabjockey05:
    Now I understand why the lawyers are so concerned about torture of other than US citizens. They are preparing the ground for a class action suite for all those military people who have been criminally tortured both physically and Mentally.

  183. I’m wondering if SERE training violates the Geneva convention!!!! We’ve lost our souls as a nation by torturing our troops so.Will the brave armed forces of this nation ever forgive us for treating them so brutally. Truly, this is the same stuff that the nazis did, and pol pot too.
    How many innocent men should we sacrifice for the gulag?
    /sarc

  184. You wrote: It must be said, however, that they faced a different enemy in a different war. The Germans fought to expand territory through traditional warfare, at least as arrayed against the US and the West…One can make a case that the civilized techniques of PO Box 1142 worked because their detainees also believed themselves civilized and members of the Western culture.
    Are you serious?
    Does the term “civilized” come to mind when reflecting on a regime that killed over six million Jews? On a regime whose stated ambition was complete world domination via “extermination”?
    If you honestly believe what you’ve written, and are not just cowering to the paranoidal beliefs of your political base, then you may the dumbest person on earth.

  185. +1 What Nil said, Captain Ed. And Glenn Greenwald took your argument to school, too.
    10 years ago, you conservatives were talking about shrinking the government and not trusting it. Now you want the government to spy on everyone because the Islamic terrorists are the most dangerous enemy this nation has ever faced. And now, in order to prove this, you re-spin the Nazis into kidly gentlemen you’d have a beer with.
    Incredible.

  186. The Allies executed Japanesse commandants of POW camps for waterboarding. There. The precedent has been set. Waterboarding IS drowning and it IS torture.
    The Nazis were monsters; the German military less so. It is wise to separate the professional military from the Gestapo and Nazi SS. POBox 11442 guys were interrogating military guys for the most part.

  187. Do you guys smoke crack every day, or just on weekends?
    Do you really think that a bunch of wackos running around playing ninja in the desert are more intelligent, and dangerous than the Nazis who basically managed to take on the combined powers of The United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and other allied forces?
    That you are willing to become what you once fought against pretty much indicates that you’ve stopped being Americans, and become something else.
    You guys are now just another bunch of bad guys.
    You may now proceed to change my opinion. Good luck with that, because while you may not think it all that important… but winning hearts and minds is the best weapon you have.
    Keep on acting like brutal tyrants… and pretty much everybody in the world will be cheering next time Bin Laden hits you.

  188. Bashing the Times which tells the truth gives blogging a bad name.
    You might want to try another profession.

  189. what!? you sit at a desk in a nice cozy office with your latte at your elbow and talk about hurting people, right? with a clear conscience, right? brain dead, right?

  190. “The Allies executed Japanesse commandants of POW camps for waterboarding.”
    No. These commandants were executed, the few that were, after trial for crimes that were many many levels above waterboarding. Waterboarding never even was among the charges by the eleven nation Japanese War Crimes Commission indictments.

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