Text 10371, 247 rader
Skriven 2009-03-19 07:51:18 av JOHN FITZGERALD (1:123/140)
Kommentar till en text av DAVE DRUM
Ärende: Torture - A reasoned view
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DD> Try a Little Tenderness
DD> By STEVEN KLEINMAN and MATTHEW ALEXANDER
DD> Published: March 10, 2009
DD> ON Jan. 22, President Obama signed an executive order banning
DD> torture and establishing a panel to examine America’s
DD> interrogation methods.
And after they are done examining our 'methods' with the way other
countries have employed (real) torture, they should come to realize
that Obama's (get-Bush) public relations ploy is only appeasing the
Get-Bush-Bots and the Mary Poppins crowd who haven't seen a day's
hardship in terms of survival their entire life.
DD> The ban on torture is a major step toward reclaiming our
DD> heritage as a nation of laws and a people of character.
This rests on the assumption that getting someone wet and chocked,
as a last resort, and when there is simply no time to be patient and
'understanding' is something that, all by itself, undermines the
character and heritage of an entire nation. This is obviously a public
relations op' ed' piece for the Obama camp.
DD> And it will enhance the country’s security by undermining
DD> Al Qaeda’s most effective recruiting theme — its portrayal
DD> of the United States as a dishonorable superpower...
Al Qaeda and other like minded groups see the United States as
dishonarable because we have permitted more than 50 million abortions
of our children, allow homosexuals to parade down 'main street', have a
drug abuse problem that is -common- in our culture, have millions of
children born out of wed lock, have a (very) high divorce rate, which is
often glorified as 'fashionable' by Hollywood, have a (very) high crime
rate, allow pornography in our public libraries and in large part are a
nation of fat, comfortable and self centered hypocrites. Whether or
not we employ waterboarding isn't going to change that view, at all.
People like Al qaeda use tactics on their enemies that make
waterboarding look like a rainy day at the picnic, so the assumption
that employing such milk-toast interrogation methods has some of them
'outraged' must have them rolling on the floor with laughter.
DD> ...that sanctions the type of abuses so
DD> graphically captured in the images from Abu Ghraib.
This is obviously a 'get-Bush' Op'Ed piece because what went on at
Abu Ghraib under our watch does not even begin to compare with what
went on there before we occupied that place.
DD> The challenge now for the panel is to reconsider the ancient
DD> practice of interrogation and bring it into the modern age.
"Ancient practice"? Killing your enemy in battle is also an "ancient
practice" but still used. The writers here are obviously trying to
flatter the reader into agreement. ie.If you agree with us you are a
'modern person'. btw.. Flattery is an 'ancient practice' to get self
centered and vain types to go along with the program.
DD> That will require making an effort to objectively assess
DD> which strategies are actually effective.
Our military and intelligence agencies already have years and years
of accounts of interrogations at their disposal to review any time they
are in 'doubt'. The writers are assuming our guys have no clue about
what they've already known about for years, in the first place.
If you can't see through this yet, your ill inspired 'get-Bush' hatred
has long since consumed your ability to reason and deduce simple logical
progression.
DD> One might think that any interrogation method considered
DD> legal must also be effective. But many techniques that
DD> have been deemed lawful by lawyers at the Justice Department,
DD> the Defense Department and even the White House have never
DD> been tested for how well they elicit information from people
DD> who resist providing it.
This rests on the assumption that our military and intel' people are
a bunch of idiots who don't keep records of what works and doesn't work.
These writers just tipped their hand and were obviously bought off by the
get-Bush for Obama crowd. This is a flagrant propaganda piece that only
appeals to those with a sense of 'progressive' vanity who have little to
no idea about the harsh realities our guys have to deal with in the
real world.
DD> In fact, none of the methods contained in the current
DD> Army manual on interrogation have ever been scientifically
DD> tested for effectiveness.
All they have to do is look at their records to see which
interrogation methods were successful and which were not. And their
claim than none of their methods have been "scientifically tested" is
utter rubbish. How else does one 'test' a method unless it is used on
a prisoner? They have years and years of such records. This is an
Op'Ed piece for people with IQ's no bigger than their belt size.
DD> As military interrogators, each of us has questioned hundreds
DD> of prisoners of war, terrorists and insurgents in the Middle East,
DD> Latin America and Asia — during both Iraq wars and the 1989
DD> invasion of Panama — and we have supervised thousands of other
DD> interrogations.
Yet above they claim:
" ..none of the methods contained in the current Army
manual on interrogation have ever been scientifically
tested for effectiveness."
...and then turn around and try to pass themselves off as experts.
DD> While we speak only for ourselves....we have seen firsthand
DD> that many standard approaches are rarely useful in eliciting
DD> reliable intelligence, and often serve only to harden a
DD> detainee’s resistance.
More rubbish. If someone wants you to tell him where you are hiding
your money, all he has to do is take out a knife and threaten to cut one
of your eyes out. Unless you are out of your mind, you're gonna talk.
And you know it.
If mild interrogation methods like waterboarding aren't successful,
it is only because the subject knows it's something he will be walking
away from and getting over of in a matter of minutes.
...
DD> The most effective strategies for relationship building are
DD> the kind that interrogators used to extract critical
DD> information from high-level Japanese and German prisoners
DD> during World War II.
Well isn't all of this interesting... Again the writer claims:
" ..none of the methods contained in the current Army
manual on interrogation have ever been scientifically
tested for effectiveness."
..yet now he -is- telling you what is 'effective'. And again, he is
telling you what he thinks is (always?) effective here:
DD> Interrogators who were familiar with the detainees’ language
DD> and culture, and who exhaustively studied each prisoner’s
DD> case, used charisma and empathy to patiently elicit
DD> vital intelligence.
And what do they do when they don't even know the prisoner's name,
or anything about him at all?? These writers not only contradict
themselves but have huge unexplained gaps in their claims.
DD> Similarly, it was a relationship-building approach that we
DD> used to persuade a detainee to give us information on the
DD> whereabouts of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader
DD> of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia —
Some detainees are not hard to break. This far from discounts the
effectiveness of harsher methods of interrogation on those who are not.
DD> ...information that led to his being located
DD> and killed in 2006.
But isn't that sort of an "ancient practice"? Why didn't they try
to sit down with them for tea and talk him into submission?
Total hypocrites.
DD> And our military lacks an elite unit of highly trained
DD> interrogators to call upon when high-level people in
DD> terrorist organizations are captured. Too often,
DD> the questioning is left to whoever is closest at hand.
In any POW camp, as a rule, they have 'highly trained' interrogators
who have a wealth of history and records from which to reference, that is,
if they all of the sudden got dumb on the job, forgot everything they
were taught and have to go back and re-educate themselves.
DD> The president’s new panel has a fresh opportunity
DD> to solve these problems. The group should include
DD> experienced interrogators and policymakers...
'Policy makers' are usually desk jockeys who almost always get in the
way of people with straight forward intelligence and years of experience,
unless of course these "interrogators" have been bought off to write a
propaganda piece for Obama. And I am sure it is no coincidence this
piece came out right at the same time Obama is trying to reinvent the
wheel if interrogation.
...
DD> Interrogation is both art and science; like any profession,
DD> it is a dynamic endeavor with potential for
DD> continual improvement.
And no doubt they think they can improve the mouse trap, something
that has always been quite effective in the first place.
DD> Steven Kleinman has been an intelligence officer and
DD> an interrogator in the Air Force for 25 years and is
DD> a colonel in the Air Force Reserve. Matthew Alexander,
DD> who also worked as an interrogator in the military,
DD> is the author of “How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S.
DD> Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take
DD> Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq.ö
Again, there must be many cases where detainees are not at all
difficult to break. And since these (hired?) writers feel none of
the military's methods of interrogation have been tested for
'effectiveness', I can only wonder what they been doing for the past
25 years.
Again, this Op'Ed is so transparent I can only wonder why the
NY Times even bothered to publish it. Well, actually I don't have to
wonder for long. It was obviously a propaganda piece put out for
all the naive dupes, the blind Get-Bush-Bots, and the Marry Poppins
crowd who's idea of hardship is having a credit card canceled.
DD> "Anyone can make history. Only a great man
DD> can write it." - Oscar Wilde
Anyone can write about history, only the great ones are
remembered by it. - John Fitzgerald.
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