Anyone who supports torturing suspects is a scumbag.

The United States can survive terrorists and terror attacks.

The United States cannot survive the introduction of torture into our culture.

JT

"Posted by: John | Sep 14, 2007 6:34:39 PM"

Hey great, it's ok to shred terrorists with gatling guns, dismember and spread their guts all over the place with bombs
but the moment somebody uses a technique that leaves no permanent damage to get a terrorist to reveal information that can be vital to saving innocent lives the "civilized world" suddenly gets alienated. This is the precise reason why we WILL lose the war on terror: our population is borderline retarded.

CIA no longer water what?Hey,Langley where's the Gimp?Oops!I'm dreadfully sorry I outed yet another state secret.This is America.The country where people have no recourse to justice because they can't prove that the "invisible government"-the 1%Doctrine that replaced 54/12-is behind the hounding and degradation that they have to endure because it serves a greater good:Hill and Bill's 3rd term and the Bush dynasty's royal ambitions.Why don't you ask your friends at the Hoover building why they don't follow through when people file complaints,knowing who is really behind some of the stunts you pull.What is Johnny Chung up to these days?How is Norman Hsu doing?There are people at Langley that know very well why this is being posted.Maybe some day Brian Ross will be knocking at your HQ?

Torture is the moral equivalent of a nuclear weapon and should be used as rarely. Torture may allow in extremely rare cases, only perhaps once a generation or century outside Hollywood, verification of actionable intelligence to prevent an horrific event. Conversely, when used with public knowledge aforethought, our reputation suffers and our enemies grow and claim righteousness.

Was torturing KSM a responsible use? Maybe, but certainly widespread use of 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' is far over the line.

Mostly people will say anything to make torture stop; the technique consists of moral garbage in, material garbage out, as strongly supported by Israeli work. The broad nature of the following claim brings into question the veracity of information obtained from KSM:

"Ultimately, KSM took responsibility for the 9/ll attacks and virtually all other al Qaeda terror strikes, including the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl."

So he says he did it all. Fine. Great. Now what about the future stuff. Remember, he will say anything to make it stop.

And God help our people, whether military, intelligence, or diplomatic, if they fall in the 'wrong' hands after our public behavior. Gitmo, Bagram, Iraq/abu-Gharaib, and the black sites have had the moral effect of the unwarranted use of atomic weapons. Everybody deplores us, and objectives have been poorly met.

The willingness of some to justify the use of government sponsored illegal torture on anyone is disappointing.

Should we not expect our leaders to honor the prisoner of war standards defined by the Geneva Convention, which we helped draft...and of which other nations can and have been held accountable for in international court?

As a nation of the people, should we not insist our government follow a couse of due process and set limits on government sponsored torture?

I believe the opinion of some who favor "preemptive aggression" and "torturing of captives" is a dangerous precept of justice within the free society we cherish.

Back when America used to have integrity, we used to hang Japanese military officers for waterboarding.

Now we are the evil Empire, so it's OK.

It's all very well to toss civilised behaviour aside in the name of security, but I wonder how many supporters of waterboarding torture would keep supporting it if the Iraqi resistance or the Taliban captured US troops and sent videos of them being waterboarded to death to Al Jazeera or even to the White House? You think it's OK to torture people like this, but let's see how many of you could sit back and watch your own people being waterboarded, locked in rooms and alternately frozen and roasted, deprived of sleep for weeks on end and all those other lovely games that the Americans like to play in contravention of the Geneva Conventions and all the other treaties they deliberately break. Like everything the Americans do, this will come back to bite them. If the USA uses torture, then it can be expected that its own people will be tortured in the same way by its enemies. When the USA starts receiving the bodies of its own soldiers drowned by waterboarding, it will not have a leg to stand on in the way of complaint.

So, Dead Pirate, are you talking about the same nazi's that herded human beings in to gas chambers to kill them? At least those who had not yet starved to death? I don't think those are the folks we should be taking moral lessons from.

Does this ban include the out of country places we end up sending the terrorist suspects as well? ... right... I didn't think so...

Hey Ed, tell to Jesus Christ (who I would bet the farm you proclaim to believe in) ... he would tell you that by turning the other cheek you would at least walk away with some since of dignity.

Yep, its true, Cheney is on record publicly supporting this tactic ... a favorite method of those old-fashioned, Christian, freedom loving people, the Gestapo.

Hi,
How many times have we heard Pres Bush say "the United States does not torture."
Perhaps he doesn't think that waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" are torture!
I thought he exempted the CIA from the ban on torture??
Why did he exempt them? Are they not also Americans? Perhaps the CIA has foreigners actually do the torture so taht they can say the United States does not torture. Would General Hayden care to comment on this?
Who would have thunk only ten years ago that we would be debating this!

I don't believe Hayden. It is his business to lie when it satisfies the ends.

As to the comment about Bush being called stupid, yet being credited for pulling off 911...

Bush has limited mental capacity. Some say it is a result of fetal alcohol syndrome.

Dick Cheney is the evil brain who likely was directly involved in perpetrating 911. Bush was just brought along for the ride, and told exactly what to say. Bush is the front man. Cheney is the wizard of evil.

They should both be impeached and prosecuted for their crimes.

I am sure the Bush would tell us that they really don't do much more than noogies, wedgies, and indian rub burns if could and get away with it!

Torture is torture and unnecessary in the modern world the intelligent nations should have learned that the information gotten is unreliable or contaminated and the come backs are with out question beyond the risks. There are more sophisticated methods by trained individuals that lead to truth gathering information over a short period of time, but that depends on the intelligent nation theory, and the ability to verity facts.

“Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.”
-Benjamin Franklin

If you think Our Country stands for torture, stand up for your beliefs and put sensory deprivation hood and gloves on the Statue of Liberty.

Bush and his neo-cons have tarnished Our Country long enough. Just ask the CIA.

Its better to ban it, then go ahead and do it. It will make it more difficult for them to beat it if they do not think its coming.

Well, would you listen to that?

"King George, the dictator, who lets anyone and everyone insult him without taking away their freedom of speech"

-MehMeh

Well, MehMeh, NO president LETS me speak. The United States Constitution does. Funny you would say that, though, to prove YOUR "president" is not a king. My entire family is laughing at you.

We not only need to torture these terrorists, we need to hang them up or shoot them in the head for the world to see what we do to people that kill Americans. Only then will they realize that we mean business.