Obama's work so far really brings out the bipolar in me. Like that episode in The Simpsons.

Shopkeeper: Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: Ooh, that's bad.
Shopkeeper: But it comes with a free frogurt!
Homer: That's good.
Shopkeeper: The frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: That's bad.
Shopkeeper: But you get your choice of toppings.
Homer: That's good!
Shopkeeper: The toppings contain potassium benzoate.
Homer: ...
Shopkeeper: ...that's bad.
Homer: Can I go now?

[quote="AnJon Lyrik Chigurh"]Obama's work so far really brings out the bipolar in me. Like that episode in The Simpsons.

Shopkeeper: Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: Ooh, that's bad.
Shopkeeper: But it comes with a free frogurt!
Homer: That's good.
Shopkeeper: The frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: That's bad.
Shopkeeper: But you get your choice of toppings.
Homer: That's good!
Shopkeeper: The toppings contain potassium benzoate.
Homer: ...
Shopkeeper: ...that's bad.
Homer: Can I go now?[/quote]

Poor Homer. All he wanted was some frogurt.

Question, Are they tortures or war-time interogation acts? and what do you think would happen if Obama had to deal with a possible future 9/11 type situation.

Waterboarding and beating detainees to death are torture by any sane definition and have been prosecuted as war crimes before. They were called torture by everyone up until Bush took office and authorized their use, at which point they were called "frat pranks" by Republicans.

The fact is that they don't work. They don't produce useful intelligence. The purpose of torture is always torture. And I wouldn't expect Obama to authorize torture if he was faced with another 9/11, since it doesn't work and there would be no point to it.

I understand your argument that torture is immoral and wrong. However, I do not understand the part about it not working. There are controls one can use to see if a person is feeding interrogators truthful intelligence. For example, ask them questions you already know the answers to. You can also verify their responses for truthfulness. Of course, it probably won't work in all cases and in all cases there is a limit to its usefulness.

If a robber placed a gun to your head and said "give me your wallet or I shoot you," would you think in most situations the wallet would be turned over to the robber? If you had no wallet, wouldn't the robber verify that? If torturing produces no results, why would anyone torture people? So they can get zero information and face ridicule? That makes little sense unless all those who participated in such programs are simple sadists and irrational.

Yep, that's what I'm saying. Some people are for it or do it because they think it works, but they're wrong. And others are doing it because they just want to torture. Were the Vietnamese justified in torturing John McCain for five years (actually, according to Rush Limbaugh, they were).

Rush Limbaugh says that McCain is proof that torture works because they broke him. But here's what McCain told his captors: "Eventually, I gave them my ship’s name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron. When asked to identify future targets, I simply recited the names of a number of North Vietnamese cities that had already been bombed."

Torture is notoriously unreliable. The fact is that when people are tortured, they will tell you anything to get you to stop. If they have nothing, then they will make it up. And the ticking time bomb scenario that Republicans love to cite simply does not happen. That's only in the movies.

Here's my question for you: If Republicans are right that torture is nothing more than "frat boy pranks" and waterboarding is like "splashing water in someone's face" then why would they think that it WOULD work? And why keep those techniques secret out of fear that al Queda will teach their people to tolerate it? Why would someone fear having water splashed on them or a couple of slaps to the face? How would the relatively innocuous techniques that they're claiming possibly illicit any kind of useful information?

I think their point is that things like water boarding are not physically taxing, rather they are psychological in nature and therefore less dangerous. Furthermore, the "frat boy prank" language, so far as I can intuit, is meant to mean that something as innocuous (compared to other torture) as water boarding yields good results with little physical danger. My guess is that water boarding must elicit some responses, otherwise why do it?

I mentioned before that torture obviously has diminishing returns and doesn't work in all cases. However, that is where controls come into play where they are asked questions you know the answer to already. Its not like a torturer is going to pull out the big guns and throw all his eggs into one basket based on one response. Responses can be verified.

You say this like people are normally rational.

Over 100 people DIED in US custody after being tortured to death. How's that for being "not physically taxing."

Here's what a victim of Republican torture policy looks like:



That's what you call a "frat boy prank."



You are wrong. It doesn't work. Is it seriously your contention that everything that people do must ipso facto produce the desired results, because they wouldn't do it otherwise? Of all the bone-headed defenses of these vile and inhumane war crimes, that one has to be the most retarded one I've heard yet.

I never called that a frat boy prank, that was what some Republicans had called water boarding and I tried to explain their rationale. Go reread what I wrote (I even bolded it for skimming), I was specifically referring to water boarding not being physically taxing, though clearly psychologically taxing. The picture you linked to, though possible, doesn't seem to be water boarding. I would not call that a frat boy prank and I don't call water boarding a frat boy prank.

It is not my contention that everything people do "must ipso facto produce the desired results." It is my contention that when people do something, over and over ad infinitum throughout the centuries, there must be some rationale, besides simple sadism, for continuing to do so. I am sure that torture doesn't work in all cases, but fail to see why you cannot admit that it sometimes does.

BTW, you never answered my previous question. If someone placed a gun next to your head and said they would shoot you unless you turned over your wallet, would you? Or would you at least agree that most people would?

I'll admit it when you show me some proof that it does. You're assuming that it must or people wouldn't do it - you don't actually have any real examples. Your assumption is built on the fallacy that people do cruel and inhumane things for rational reasons, but I'd argue that the exact opposite is true.

The techniques you're justifying are methods used by such rational regimes as the Spanish Inquisition (who used waterboarding frequently), the Nazis, Stalin, the Viet Cong, the Khmre Rouge. These are the GOP models for how we should conduct interrogations. These are the people you're arguing have been so "rational," the most brutal and cruel regimes in recent history.



That's not what torture is. The efficacy of armed robbery is irrelevant.

Let's imagine for a moment that you didn't have your wallet and you didn't know where it was, and the person holding the gun to your head didn't know for sure if you were telling the truth about that. He then beats you within an inch of your life and promises to keep beating you until you tell him what he wants to know. What would you do? The answer is that it doesn't matter. Whatever information you give him will be useless to him but you've been tortured anyway. You may even be dead. The purpose of torture is always torture.

The question is whether or not torture produces actionable intelligence with any sort of reliability. It does not. Even if we assume that 1 out of 100 times, a victim MIGHT give up some sort of useful information, that doesn't mean that torture works. If your car only started 1 out of 100 times you tried it, it's safe to say that you wouldn't say your car worked.

Torture works less than that. It is a completely unreliable way to get information. It is also a war crime. And this is what Republicans not only think should be our standard policy, but which has already been authorized by Bush and resulted in the deaths of over 100 detainees.

Question - as so many are ripping on that miss america girl > what is obamas position on equal rights for all - gays and lesbians and he/shes - and has he started equal rights bills through congress yet.

He claims he is in favor of civil unions, though I doubt anyone actually believes that. I'm sure he is in favor of gay marriage but simply afraid of the political consequences that might arise if he stuck his next out.

Well if we are blasting regular people on these equal rights issues. Shouldn't we be holding the president to these standards. How does he escape this or is it just that no one asks or calls him on this question.

He opposed Prop 8 and has stated that he opposes gay marriage for religious reasons, but thus far seems to support the legalization of gay marriage by the government. That's by far the most progressive stance of any president we've had.

I disagree with him on gay marriage for religious reasons, as do many others who have called him on it, but what's important to me is public policy. And he's pretty good on that.

I'm not getting how you keep saying things like "no one calls him on it" on a variety of these issues. Are you not paying attention at all to the media and pundits?

Obama has apparently relented and is leaving open the possibility that officials who engaged in or ordered torture could be investigated and possibly prosecuted.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_ ... on_memos_2

It's not a crackdown unfortunately, but it's at least a step in the right direction from "There will be no prosecutions."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... alue-info/

not including everything. doesn't sound very transparent to me.

That sentence was not included in a shorter one-page statement Blair's office gave to the media last Thursday, the same day Obama released previously top secret Bush administration memos laying out Republican lawyers' rationale for why they believed the interrogations were legal.

Blair did not release the statement in his press release, but it was declassified along with all the other memos (otherwise they couldn't have released it at all).

So yes, transparent.

"The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means," Blair said in the prepared statement. "The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime.

"There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder," he continued.

This is your modern Republican party. These are the people trying to convince America that Democrats are fascists. These are the people who impeached Clinton over the "rule of law" for getting a blow job.

new poll....

Obama Check> How happy are you with Obama's Presidency and how he is doing so far!

100% Happy with Obama's Presidency and how he is doing!
90% Happy with Obama's Presidency and how he is doing!
80% Happy with Obama's Presidency and how he is doing!
70% Happy with Obama's Presidency and how he is doing!
60% Happy with Obama's Presidency and how he is doing!
50% Happy with Obama's Presidency and how he is doing!
40% Happy with Obama's Presidency and how he is doing!
30% Happy with Obama's Presidency and how he is doing!
20% Happy with Obama's Presidency and how he is doing!
10% Happy with Obama's Presidency and how he is doing!
0% Happy with Obama's Presidency and how he is doing!

You may select 1 option

Stop with the polls.

stop the whinning. or make a real criticism of why a poll I make up is bad!!!!!!

ps. you won't be able to proberly as most are brilliant and beyond reproach.