[Max2147]

Originally Posted by Aramike

So what do you call beheading American civilians and non-combantants?

Awful, and there's absolutely no justification for it whatsoever. I admit that our stance on torture won't deter our current enemy, but what we're doing now sets a dangerous precedent.

Originally Posted by Aramike

Hogwash. The military and CIA interrogators aren't foolish - they are unlikely to continue employing interrogation methods which don't work.

What people like you are doing is demonizing such patriots as sadists looking for a cheap thrill through hurting others. There's only three options here:

• Either enhanced interrogation works and that's why we used it.
• Enhanced interrogation does not work, and it's used only for the interrogaters to get their jollies.
• Enhanced interrorgation does not work, and the military and CIA operatives who employ the methods are morons.

Usually what makes the most sense is the answer.

Stop taking out all your prejudices against the left on me. Where do I call them sadists? Where do I say they were doing it for cheap thrills? POINT ME TO AN EXACT *******ING QUOTE!

In my opinion those who authorized and used methods that are now officially considered torture did so thinking that they were doing good. They were pursuing a very narrow goal (getting a detainee to talk), and they failed to see the wider consequences of their actions. They were guilty of shortsightedness and narrow thinking, not malice.

Originally Posted by Aramike

You're presuming (as many of the left do, who don't independantly research the issue) that waterboarding is being used indiscriminately. What, do you honestly think that you're the only one to figure out that, should the method be used on someone with no information, that person is likely to make something up?

They're not just pouring water on people and asking "what do you know?" - that's foolish (ironically it is also the left's main argument against the method).

The method is used when we KNOW that a detainee has SPECIFIC information, but we don't know what that information is. For example, let's say we know that detainee X was at a planning session for a terrorist attack 2 years ago. We know this via satellite photography and humint. We use traditional questioning but the detainee won't reveal the contents of the meeting. That's when other techniques would be applied.

Sure, we may not stop a terrorist plot this way (plans may have changed due to the detainee's captivity, etc.) - but it IS worth a shot, considering that we're judging a known terrorist's comfort against the well-being of American civilians.

Again, stop portraying me as your (fictional) stereotypical leftie. You wouldn't like it if I came here and started slandering you with everything I don't like about the right.

The use of the methods that are now considered torture was widespread. Lots of detainees were tortured, and some were tortured hundreds of times. You can't honestly believe that they were going after a specific piece of info in every case.

I personally think that the methods were authorized for a very specific circumstance, and once it was used the first time the dam was broken, so to speak. Their use became more widespread until it became systematic.

Originally Posted by Aramike

You obviously know very little about how intelligence works.... There's no such thing as "too much" information.That's absurd. If you're referring to, say, NSA intercepts (sigint) than yes, there's a lot to absorb. However, like I said, you obviously know little about how intelligence works.

The biggest enemy of intelligence gathering is counter-intelligence - something that Al Qaeda is very good at. Prior to 9/11, almost all of our intel on terrorism was communications (comint/sigint). This is easily defeated by simply not using the phone, for example. The problem is that we have traditionally had very little human intelligence (humint) as these groups are difficult to compromise due to their insidious nature. Even so, should a group actually be infiltrated, how do you suppose getting any information out? The groups are so small that tracing leaked information would be a fairly simple task, and due to a clear communications black-out, just getting the word out in the first place would be nearly impossible.This is more like going through a massive junkyard looking for a certain part, and trying to find it on a specific car. Makes more sense than arbitrarily looking through the whole damned thing, doesn't it?Again, you demonstrate that you don't know how the intel community works. "Adding more junk", as you put it, can be immeasurably helpful if the information proves to be accurate. If it doesn't, then we're in the same boat either way.

Well, I guess I'll go back to the guy who told me those things and tell him he's wrong. He's only the former Director of the CIA, he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about.