"Torturers are trained to invent tales of terrorism"

Our country is paying dearly for the sins of the Bush administration. This is nothing but evil. Clearly we have sunk just as low as Al Qaeda. We need a leader who will return America to the moral high ground.

God us help us for we have become the devil.

Except there is no Al Qaeda.

Are Bush and Cheney war criminals yet?

The president and VP need to be impeached and then indicted for the war criminals they are.

At least he wasn't waterboarded.

George W. Bush on 23 March 2003 speaking on prisoners: “I expect them to be ... treated humanely... the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals." --- Mr. Bush, by your own words, you are guilty and should be charged.

I'm unclear as to whether the cables mentioned in the story have been leaked or declassified.

If so, then could we please get a link to them?

"Torturers are trained to invent tales of terrorism", particularly under the duress of torture. It's amazing what the mind can think of when all you want to do is to stop the pain. People will say anything to make the pain stop. Anything...

Why does it seem so unlikely that the U.S. government outsourced torture to more experienced torturers? Why does it seem so unlikely that the U.S. tortures people? If we are so proud of what we do, we should own up to it.

No newspaper has picked it up, but I had this on a weblog over a year ago

It was basically completely ignored. Unfortunately the U.S. press decides that rendition stories are newsworthy based on how many OTHER members of the U.S. press are talking about it in a given week (present company excluded, of course--I know that Stephen Grey has worked on this story for years).

one too many times have we heard of such stories and it gets us thinking abt the people we used to trust and how they want total control imperialism and injustice for the sake of their own pockets and the sake of their never ending greed. open ur eyes to the truth, we r the tuth and the future

A WELTER OF OTHER NEWS??? What kind of excuse is that for our media missing this extremely important story? Was Britney Spears acting up at the time?

Torturing detainees seems to be good for at least one thing: Providing tales of terror attacks. The Bush Administration uses these tales as reasons to continue the torturing, scare the public, and consolodate more power for the executive branch.

[A WELTER OF OTHER NEWS??? What kind of excuse is that for our media missing this extremely important story? Was Britney Spears acting up at the time?]

The majority of media is owned by corporations. Bush scratches corporate backs and corporates, visa versa. It was not in the corporate's interests to report such an important story. You don't bite the hand that feeds you. Instead of what should be reported, we get Britany Spears, Paris Hilton, OJ, Terri Schaivo, Anna Nicole Smith and plenty more news distractions that we could do without. It used to be that (so called news like that) was relegated to shows like Entertainment Tonight and supermarket tabloids. Now it is the big news according to the corporate media. It's all by design folks! And they wonder why so many people are getting the real news about their country from bloggers and foreign newspapers. At least ABC has decided to compete with independent news sources.

In all of this talk about war crimes let us not forget that an unprovoked war of aggression is the ultimate war crime. This country will not be made whole again until Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the entire neocon cabal is in the docket at The Hauge and every piece of legislation undermining our Constitution is repealed. We have lost our way. Being attacked on 9/11 turned us into something as evil as those who attacked us. We are Americans! We are better than this!

I tremble for my country when I reflect that GOD is just; [and] that his justice cannot sleep forever.
--Thomas Jefferson

They brought us into war based on "evidence" extracted by illegal torture, then repeatedly lied about it. Unless we want to leave a precedent for future outrages, we have no choice: Impeach them.

The captain is right except we are no longer good Americans. The Democrats are good Germans and the Repubs are Nazis. No? Not a good analogy? Yeah, you're right. Notwithstanding the corporate media, Americans of the 21st century are better informed than 1930s Germans. So they're sticking their heads in the sand a little bit deeper.

It takes much more than the Bush cabal to engage in such crimes against humanity let alone the war crime of "preemptive war." The International Court of Justice only takes jurisdiction if the nation in which the crimes have been committed fails to prosecute. You can bet with Scalia, Thomas et al., that's going to be the story. Consequently, if America is ever going to reestablish it's moral place in the world, the Hague is going to be a very, very busy place!

The reason the Kucinich impeachment proceedings go nowhere despite huge approval by the American people is because the Democratic politicians love torture as a deniable threat as much as the Republicans. Hang the corporatocracy, confiscate their wealth, exile their families to Darfur refugee camps, burn their houses to the ground. If they run or hide, use the national defense budget to hire Blackwater to hunt them down, dead or alive.

It's bad enough that what we have suspected has been proven, acknowledged and reported.

What's even worse than the fact that this will be underreported at best is that there are many American citizens who will justify this horrific series of events before they even fully understand it. It is the blind allegiance to leadership that causes first corruption, then destruction of the democratic state.

We are becoming what we resist. We have attacked the symptoms without understanding the cause, and we are already paying the steep price of a diseased body politic.

I sincerely hope that we reach bottom soon; I don't think that our precious republic will withstand much more abuse.

what are 'cables'? is that like sending a telegram??? why does are government still send 'cables'....the internet is everywhere...

Remember when political disagreements in this country used to be about stuff like tax rates and trade policies, instead of whether torture is an acceptable practice? God, I miss those days.

Why don't you do an expose on the Americans and allies who have been tortured by Insurgents, AlQaida and Iran? No, you guys would NEVER have an agenda in your journalism.

I am disappointed that the terrorist wasn't flown to a country that knows how to torture effectively for information; like Vietnam. If the Egyptians are so good, then how come, as the saying goes, the Israelis have their phone number?

Nice to know that we are able to accommodate them so well. Hope they liked the stay.

After reading the posts on this topic, I can clearly see what's wrong with us. It just happens to be all the people like you, and your bleeding heart ideals. If it takes torture on one of these animals to stop all the killing, i'm more than all for it. On the other hand if all of you feel so strongly about this, why don't you offer to take them into your homes and neighborhoods and show them the wrongs of their ways.

Moral high ground? Are you kidding me? Seriously, stop making yourselves look ignorant of our government, and many other governments, historical participation in this type of "conduct". Pick an era, any era, and you can find the U.S. of A and it's representatives behaving as the humans you evidently wish we weren't.

Remember the SS massacre of U.S. POW's during the Battle of the Bulge. Read up on the retaliation by American soldiers, ordered by their commanders, as the tide in that battle turned.

What about the firebombing of Dresden? How was the West won? Ask any tribal member.

Seriously, get off your collective high horse, put away your political axes and thank whomever you worship the job is getting done at the comparatively insignificant cost we've paid so far. By the way, how was that morning latte?

All this talk of prisoners. I suggest we quit taking them. Just kill them all. Problem solved. They cannot attack us. They cannot complain about their treatment. Run up the red flag. No quarter given, none expected.

Dear Americans, please, please use your ballot boxes to get your government under control. The rest of us are really not looking forward to having to come in and change your regime for you.

p.s. here's a tip to get you started: Fix your justice department first. All men are supposed to be equal before the law. That is clearly not the case today in the USA. Equal enforcement of the law is fundamental to freedom and justice.

Isaac:
"the job is getting done at the comparatively insignificant cost we've paid so far"

What a sick, sick statement. This 'job' is an illegal war based on lies, mis-information, and government-led terror. No cost is insignificant in this case.

It seems no one has a sense of history. You act as though America is getting worse. Try looking up our government's and soldiers' actions during WWII. The American military and government are far more humane today than they have been in the past. The world never was and never will be a Utopia of peace and freedom. It is a world governed by force of arms and ironically the country you seem to hate is the very country that allows you to say such things openly without threat of being tortured. Try being in Saddam's Iraq and criticizing him. Then you will know torture.

Get real people, you fight fire with fire, this is war! Torture has been around forever and it will not go away!

Wahhh, terrorists were tortured by their brethren in Muslim Countries. Jimmy crack corn and I DON'T CARE. People need to wake up, those terrorists want us DEAD. There is no negotiating with muslims who are willing to blow themselves up, and kill 75 other muslims just to take out two american soldiers! Wake up people, this is just like WWII, only instead of Nazis, its Muslim Extremists. Nazi's wanted the Jews gone, so do the Muslim Extremists. Japan sucker punched us at Pearl Harbor, Extremist Muslims sucker punched us in the World Trade Center. We did not become the greatest nation on earth by dying needlessly for our country, we did it by making Nazi's Kamikaze Pilots, and now Muslim Extremists die for theirs and their ideals. If it takes sinking to their level, oh well, war is hell, get it done with as quickly as possible, LIVE to regret it after, unless you prefer to play nice and let the enemy sucker punch us again, like they did in Madrid in March 04, and London in July 05.

No, I mean you're right Isaac, the United States has never had the moral high ground, but damned if we don't like to pretend we did at some point. However, just because there have been historical atrocities doesn't mean we have to keep making the same damn mistakes over and over again. Maybe one of these days the US will stop acquiring wealth and power at the expense of brown people from far away but based on past experiences that's a long way from happening.

That being said Mike, I really don't understand your logic. You seem to believe that torturing people is a good way to obtain information, but that is clearly not the case. (ask John McCain about that, he used to just recite the starting lineup of the Chicago Bears when pressed for information from the Vietcong)

It's my firm belief that the best way to stop being seen by the Muslim world, and the world at large, as as an evil they must fight is to, you know, stop being evil.

And if you truly don't think that torturing people is evil then you clearly haven't read 1984 closely enough.

If I believed that torture would stop killing, I could accept it. Go on--show me how this works. Prove to me that torturing a human being does anything more than to allow others to justify more violence.

Did you read the article, or did you just react? The point is that the man lied to stop being tortured. Torture doesn't work: The information extracted under duress isn't reliable.

It simply perpetuates the violence. What do you suppose the impact on the torturers are?

Some of you seem to believe that we're somehow stuck with killing, and torture, and cheating, and lying. You have my pity, but not my sympathy. You have been conned into believing that everyone is inherently evil.

What's really sick is that you're very likely to have learned this in a church.

Hmmmmmm.....

I haven't heard ole Tim Russert or Chris Matthews be concerned at all about this issue. In fact, in the Scooter Libby trial transcript, we all learned that the office of the Vice President considered Russert's Meet the Press as their "best venue," with Russert NEVER asking the VP any challenging questions.

And yet, here we all are, with Russert "strutting his stuff" for asking Hillary tough questions at the debate (and quite confrontational) for not releasing records as a First Lady.

Anyone ever hear Russert challenge Cheney for not releasing records as a Vice President?

Me neither. Nuff said.

Their BEST VENUE. That's what the VP's staff said of Russert, while she was under oath in a federal court.

fact is, Sen. Hillarius will swear all day long that she don't take kindly to torture, yet even her left wingnuts understand that if a bomb were hidden in south florida, threatening thousands of hardcore dem voters, she would personally be hooking up the wires to the guys to stop that!!

Special Prosecutor.

[...]thank whomever you worship the job is getting done at the comparatively insignificant cost we've paid so far.[...]

Posted by: Isaac | Nov 7, 2007 2:43:57 PM

The job is getting done? Ha!

Clearly, you've indulged in something a bit stronger than latte this morning, Isaac- that or you're simply foolish.

Aside from treating the US Presidency like a monarchy, King George has created about 50-100 years worth of damage control work for the USA, even amongst her allies.

Pointing out that previous administrations have also been guilty of war crimes and human rights violations worthy of a trip to The Hague does not in any way justify those actions, does it?

" Jimmy crack corn and I DON'T CARE. People need to wake up, those terrorists want us DEAD. "
Even if this was all we were doing (torturing terrorists, and it's not) there is no excuse for torturing a defenseless man. None. Grow up, evolve, develop some compassion, and if you can't manage that, think of how you would feel in their place. Rudy, the way you're working things is the way for all of mankind to move back into the (moral, at least) caves. Think about it. For a change.

Wait, why is it that when something negative is said about our handling of the "war on terror" does the subject always turn to WWII? This is a different war & a different era. We need to concentrate on the now because the freedoms that our brave countrymen fought for back then are being whittled away under the disguise of patriotism.

I miss being proud of where I live & what we stand for. In the 7 years that Bush & co. have been in power our freedoms have been stripped, our pride was used for personal greed, our children's lives plundered & our faith in our system of government betrayed. If your assuming that this will all magically work itself out because it's the way it oughta be, look again. Add it all up & it won't equal out to what we've been taught & believed is the American way. Our window of opportunity to set ourselves & our country straight again is getting smaller by the day. If we continue with these changes to policy we face disaster & rightfully so.

Fight fire with fire? Usually we fight fire with water.

There you have it--torture makes us LESS safe by leading to the creation of unreliable intelligence. In this case, torture led to Colin Powell supporting the case for war against Iraq. And Bush & Cheney still claim they are the ones making us safer? What nonsense.

HAHAHAHA...
while much of this is undoubtedly true, the spin put upon it by morons in the comments section makes it comical.

conspiracy nuts HEH thank you all for making me laugh each day.

Me? Got no problem with torture. It's been part of every war, in every century, by every country. Do we engage in it? I have no doubt. Is it effective? At least as effective as doing nothing...or TRYING TO BE THEIR FRIENDS (as some of you would prefer).

Have we sunk as low as Al Qaeda? That assumes we were above them to begin with. None of you are, so what makes you think we as a nation are?

There is no moral high ground in warfare. It is all a perceived high ground, and even though we engage in behavior we deny, I have no doubt we still have the high ground, morally.

That doesn't mean I support Bush, which I do not. But I am also not blind to the way liberal idiots would pursue warfare...which is to say if we DID pursue it their way we'd be replaying the early days of WWII all over again - rotating generals and multiple defeats.

But wait, that's the way we have it now, because of momos like all of you.

You all think you're soooo smart because you "knew" something a year ago (when we all knew it anyway), or because "Bush is evil" (somehow meaning what - you're not?). Get over your bad selves. If you have it your way, we'll be subservient to a whole new group of religious fundamentalists, and these guys aren't as friendly to your way of thinking.

Got no problems at all with the torture...none at all.

Impeach and then prosecute and then jail.

America MUST proclaim this illegal and not accept it. In this way we can not only re-take our place as the world's moral compass but also start to rebuild our relationships with allies and enemies alike. Otherwise I fear for our country's future.

Remember, hold your friends close, but hold your enemies closer.

Nothing much new in information about Egypt subcontracting some US tortures, and graphic details of those horrendous tortures have been displayed freely on telkevision.

The Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib gave copious details of such events some years ago after his release from Guantanamo after years of imprisonment and no charges outstanding against him. He'd never been given a trial on the seemingly bogus charges that had been dropped.

Back home in Australia, Habib displayed details of tortures he and other prisoners suffered after being rendered to Egypt. For an Australian TV network he set up an imitation torture cell in his home, and was filmed doing to his adult son what he had sugffered himself in Cairo. Well, showing what that had looked like.

It was scary television.

The US military and intelligence organizations learned their lesson from Habib's TV appearance. When they released the other Australian Guantanamo prisoner Hicks, it was on the formal understanding that he wouldn't be making any such TV appearances himself, and he was required (like US citizen John Walker Lindh in 2002) to present a sworn statement to the military tribunal that he had never been mistreated while in US custody. Such statements are clearly false and perjurious, and the US government in obtaining them is committing the felony of suborning perjury. It was Michael Chertoff of the department of justice who extracted the Lindh perjury. He was later rewarded with high government office.

Of course, most prisoners held in custody long enough will swear to anything at all that'll get 'em outa there ...

I can buy revenge on a personal level as a motive for inflicting torure on an individual, although I try to rise above such thoughts. However, doing so because it's "my job" says something way more significant about me and the people I work for. I think that analogies to the SS and death camps are appropriate here. After all, they were only doing their jobs.

There's a southern gospel song where the lyric asks that the Almighty grant "mercy" not "justice" to the sinner. May we all be granted mercy instead of the justice WE deserve for supporting torture in any form - the Germans should have risen and killed the SS and the leader, but they didn't.

I personally have no problem with extra-legal remedies when the rule of law is dead. I have no problem with executing those responsible for destroying our republic. I do not, however, feel that they need to be tortured before they're put to death. Call me old-fashioned.

The American people have been trained to invent competent Presidents!

Freedom by definition is “the liberty to move or act without outside interference, coercion or unreasonable restriction.” With the not so Patriot Act in effect, unconstitutional wire tapping, spy satellites and all the other mechanisms the current corporate driven government now uses to stomp our individual rights and Constitutional protections into the dirt, it has become remarkably obvious that the terrorists Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have succeeded to a horrific degree in their campaign to destroy the American way of life. As long as the government can, without warrants, listen to and read all our communication, examine our library reading preferences, medical and financial records, conduct sneak & peak searches of our homes freedom and liberty does not exists in this country any more. The confirmation of actual Bush sanctioned rendition and torture programs merely lends further proof that we Americans have lost control our once free country.

Of all the many, many crimes that have been committed over the past 6 years in the name of protecting democracy in the United States, this incident is the most disturbing that I have read to date. How can the people involved in this rendition policy sleep at night? Don't they feel that their morality is lost forever? Most of the people that support torture in the U.S. are evangelical Christians. How can this be? How can any Christian believe that torture is what Jesus would do/condone? It makes no sense to me.

What in the world makes any of you sophmoric libs think you are even entitled to an opinion on interrogating murderous, sub-human animals who use electric drills on people and cut children's heads off before returning them to their parents?? They have tortured women mercilessly before cutting their heads off. They have set young boys on fire.
You simpering libs are a moral outrage.
You profess to know what interrogation methods work and presume to impose your idiotic notions on our military without having the slightest idea what you are talking about.
Perhaps the best antidote to your banal and vile sentiments would be to have one of your loved ones in the hands of the people who treated Daniel Pearl so humanely.

Not only Bush and Cheney need to be impeached now the list is growing, we have Hoyer, Feinstein, Pelosi, Reid, etc.
These congresstional people are refusing to do their duty by upholding the constitution and impeaching Cheney and Bush.
When you have democrats protecting Cheney and Bush our country has no were to go but down....

I see people with conscience and morals are attacked with vapid phrases 'latte sipping' 'chardonnay drinking' by members of the party of social hierarchy and distinction. Are these people just drones for the latte sipping, chardonnay drinking members of corporate management? American's should realise the power of their position - if YOU torture then their will be nobody to protest when YOU are tortured.

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Oh, and if you think what you're doing is right, don't keep it a secret.

That is all.

First, it slowly becomes okay to torture 'them". How long until it is okay to do that to us? I was always taught that America doesn't torture prisoners because that's not the right thing to do. Simple as that. I would love to see terrorists tortured, not only for information, but for fun. Those idiots ticked off the entire nation on 9-11, but should we torture them? no. Why? Not only does it go against everything the United States stands for it also extremely screwed up. I'm tired of all you "got my flag on my pickup antennae" patriots.

Sounds Like, some people love too torture other people, Seams too me those people have a lot in common with Terrorist's. Those people are of the same bread as Terrorist's same mentallity. I think poeple that support tourture should get and education and also get their head examined.

My question to you K. Roberts is what in the world makes you think that YOU know something about interrogating monsters?

As all of the more pro torture people have pointed out these Muslims are indeed crazy, willing to blow themselves up and die for their cause. What makes you think that non-fatal pain and suffering will make them relent? Really, I'd like to know exactly how torturing someone, who is willing to die if need be, will make them rethink their position and give their sworn enemies accurate information.

17 hours he estimates he was trapped in the box. Not 16, not 18. Seems like an odd number to come up with.

Our nation, founded on the principles of freedom and justice, likes to think of itself as the moral leader of the world. Yet, here we are, debating amongst ourselves on if torture is good or bad.

Because more primative people are using their only way of attacking us, a barbaric tactic, we should retaliate in an equally barbaric way? What does that say of our country? To the other countries, especially 'muslims', it says we are no better and we may in fact be an enemy to them.

So who would you join? People of your culture and your world or people of the 'foreign' culture and the foreign world?

What you people who 'support torture' msut realize is we'll only win this war against terrorism by winning the heart of the people that the terrorists try to recruit. We cannot win a war by torturing these people because that will just make them that much more angry and that much more volatile.

Furthermore, to the rest of the world, it'll send that message that we are barbaric.

We win this war by being the moral, ethical country with high integrity and a willingness to listen and try to understand these people. Alot of that has to do with pulling our special interests out of Iraq and out of the Middle East and start focusing on things here at home. Like:

Katrina
Bridges
Social Security
Inflation
Cancer
Education

Our country isn't in the Middle East it is here in the Middle of the Americas.

Drama said "We did not become the greatest nation on earth by dying needlessly for our country, we did it by making Nazi's Kamikaze Pilots, and now Muslim Extremists die for theirs and their ideals."

Nazi Kamikaze pilots ?
Brillian analysis.

John Turner; Amen, well said, nother more needed

People: if you really think you are superior to any other human, you are ignorant. People: if you really think hurting another human is the solution, you are ignorant. People: if you think you are not your brother's keeper, you are ignorant. American ignorance is its downfall. All of you on this posting who advocate violence towards others will come to suffer from your own ignorance.

war is about an eye for an eye,kill or be killed,the politicians and generals ordered the soldiers to be in harm's way,so that these warmongers can enrich themselves,war is not about freedom,patriotism or whatever noble cause coined into the Battle Cry, how was the USA founded, what a heinous and violent past,your land was soaked with the blood of the Natives, forced labor by African slaves(humans trafficking/abduction) and the rule of the Guns and Money,the seizure of lands and country that couldn't resist their invasion and the list continues....
I have no hatred against the citizens of the USA, justice and judgement will be GOD to mete out and GOD's punishment will be swift to those who has broken the Laws of Our Heavenly Creator.As it was so written in the Holy Book.
Peace and Joy to all who seek the truth and live in peace.

You Stupid, Stupid people!!!! The word terrorist means that the person with that label is trying to kill you. You all sound like you want to die! Well do you? Waterboarding, torture to get information is nothing when compared to the death of someone you love. Or don't you people care? Do you want to die?
Good, you will leave more of this wonderfully warm and beautiful planet for me!

Ok, so you Americans finally woke up. Are you also gonna do something about it as well and impeach Bush now or just wait for the new NFL season behind your TVs and elect a new neocon next year for president, and all will stay the same?

RE: Torture

Information gained through torture of the enemy is extremely unreliable.

The Captain, USMC

ahem....everybody here defending torture or the war you seems to be forgetting one thing:

IRAQ HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 911.

THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

THE WAR IS ILLIGAL.

What can our troops expect when/if they are captured? They show the townspeople dragging our dead servicemen through the streets setting them on fire. Clinton was impeached for an indiscretion, while the Bush/Cheney lie, mislead the world, and give our children a trillion $$$ debt and a future of retaliations. On top of all of this, the oil companies are extorting money from the public once again. Does anyone remember Silverado and the Keating 5?? If my memory serves my correctly, one of the Bush clan was involved up to his neck the last time we had a banking scandal. The whole family, including Dick, should be tried as war criminals, found guilty, and sentenced to live in Bagdad I am sick and tired of the idea that we should avert are eyes and hope it a short 18 months. It is time to act. Impeach them all ready and charge both with high treason! How can anyone one with any sense not see these men are evil and guilty as sin. Hugo Chavas wasn't far from the truth when he said smell of sulfur is still strong. As they print money to fund this war they cut benefits for the vets. In the same breath they turn around and say Social Security is insolvent. If they can print money for this war, can't they print money for the poor and the elderly? I guess it too late for that...we can't possibly double the debt to help the poor and elderly. Remember our friend, Molly, and what she said a few years back...." we will refer the late 90's as the good old days". Remember the good old days when Bush senior showed a sign of a moral compass?? Have we forgotten New Orleans and our crumbling infrastructure with poison schools for our kids, and our collapsing bridges like the one in Minneapolis? Where are our leaders? These evil men have a serious karmic debt to pay. Please, God, deliver us....Get behind me Satan!!!

When you liberal bleeding hearts finally get your agenda through, it won't be long until we're all speaking Farsi or Arabic. Then when you try to complain and "dissent" as you are now doing, your bleeding hearts will stop beating as the knife slices your heads off.

To Blueneck: evidently we are not. the real bush was apparent the first time he announced for presidency 6+ years ago, but we chose to elect him over two bon-a-fide war veterans, one decorated, both of which were ridiculed and lied about during their campaigns with media complicency. "In the final analysis the people get the government they deserve."

I highly recommend all you defenders of the nakedly illegal practice of torture to enlist in the US Army. As they have been falling short of their recruitment goal and our men and women in uniform are being sent to their third and fourth deployment into a warzone of our own creation they have been under increasing strain.
The evidence regarding our "elected" leaders motivation is out there for anyone to see, from the pre-war study comissioned by Dick Cheney from the Baker Institute for public policy, which stated that the greatest threat Iraq posed to the US was our former ally Sadam's threat to use the so called "oil weapon" (threatening to cause economic distress by withholding Iraqi oil from the open market) to former fed chairman Greenspan stating during his recent book tour that the invasion was motivated at least in part by our desire to control or have access to the strait of Hormuz, a "vital" oil shipping lane. The ugly truth of Dubai based Halliburton's huge investments in Caspian sea oil fields, with no way to get it out of the region, as shipping it thru Russia was deemed unviable, and a huge political clusterfork...with Russia's own interest in the oil in the region, which was formerly part of the soviet union making profiting from those reserves nearly impossible....at least until we put an oil company executive in "charge" of Afghanistan, which immediately led to a pipeline for Halliburton.
As for our politically advertised reason for war, well...call me crazy, many probably will...but i am highly dubious at best. Anyone who has studied the photos of the pentagon prior to its collapse, and then stood next to a boeing 757 on the tarmac would realize that one of those jets didnt make that neat little hole in that building...
just sayin...

Sound like a bunch of bleeding heart liberals to me. Maybe the tune would be different if the terrorists killed YOUR mom or YOUR child.

We outsource everything else, so why not torture? Sick logic, isn't it? One outsources that which would not be acceptable in our own country.

I agree with the part of Bush's remark that read "the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals," hopefully a prophetic statement as Greg noted.

I am not anti-war as a matter of principle. I believe, as most do, that when our country is attacked and our peace and security is at stake we must use any means necessary to defend ourselves (as a last resort). That is why I supported the war in Iraq based on the information i we were given by our leaders. Those who were against the war were right in retrospect but not, I believe, based on the evidence at the time.
Most Republicans pride themselves on being pragmatists and criticize Dems ('bleeding heart liberals') for being out of touch idealists. I wish the current debate could be framed within a practical and strategic framework. Unfortunately, it becomes an polarized, political battle of demagoguery.

Let's put morality aside for the moment and focus on the practicality of fighting the battle we all believe we must win. The best method of persecuting the war on terror is not with the same tactics that our enemies use (again not because it's immoral but because it's not practical). Torture does not work, as the article demonstrates. In fact, our use of torture as a means of gathering information was partially responsible for our entering into a war that has taken the fight away from where the real terrorist are (Afghanistan). Moreover, it hinders our ability to gather crucial global, strategic support. Those who are on the fence abou