The guy administering the waterboarding is jolly and non-threatening. In real life, add the psychological value of a mean SOB, with none of the safety precautions, news witnesses, and cameras, and what you get is cold-blooded torture.

I have to say....I am mildly impressed by this guy's honesty.

See! Waterboarding does work. :-)

Hahahaha! Best comment of the year so far.

Jut for the record, he lasted about 5 seconds.

Reading your writing is torture!

Sean Hannity, your table is ready.

Hmmm..lets see...3,000 innocent Americans slaughtered in a matter of about 90 minutes..many burned alive by ignited jet fuel, other crushed underneath 110 stories of steel, and others forced to jump to their death from the top of the tallest buildings in new york...all on live TV while their families and children watched in horror...yeah..that's torture. (I'm referring to the 9/11 attacks by the way, for those who have forgotten about it..just google it or something).

Compare that to three ruthless terrorists, including the guy who planned the attack described above, laid on a bed and asked questions while being subjected to something some chicago radio host voluntarily put himself through and survived with absolutely no actual injuries at all...and as a result those terrorist provided substantial and crucial information which may have saved thousands of American lives. Call it what you want, torture or no torture.. but when put in context of what these men did and the information we needed from them to prevent any further attacks.. this does not offend my moral sensibilities one bit. The agents who waterboarded those animals are not criminals, they are heroes, and heroes we all owe a great debt of gratitude to.

I wonder how long JJ would need to be waterboarded before he changed his mind about it ... or at least pretended to, just to make it stop. (And JJ, it doesn't offend my moral sensibilities one bit to waterboard you, because you're a terrorist who was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. You may deny it now, but after being kidnapped, held without sleep for a few weeks by people who treat you like an animal, and tied down an waterboarded a few dozen times, you'll confess to flying all four planes personally. And also to assassinating Lincoln and framing Booth to cover up your involvement. Presto: torture justified.)

JJ: So is waterboarding a means of getting information, or is it revenge for 9/11? You don't seem to see any difference.

Please, if you can, show me ANY evidence that waterboarding has extracted ANY useful information that led to the capture of any terrorists or the prevention of any terrorist act. No, I am NOT willing to take Dick Cheney's word for it.

Kevin,

For starters...conservatism doesn't miss you one bit and if my post has reminded you of precisely why Kevin and Conservatism should keep their distance from one another..then perhaps we have all been better served by that.

As for waterboarding Rush Limbaugh...you are correct, I would object to that..just as I would object to waterboarding Keith Olbermann or Al Franken..because none of those three are known terrorists with much needed, high value information. What, do you think Khalid Sheik Mohammmed was selected at random out of the phone book? Get serious dude. If you believe that waterboarding is always wrong, regardless of how many American lives it may save or how much vital information it may produce..that's fine, you have the right to that opinion. But just keep in mind that your very right to agree or disagree with the actions taken by our government and to speak out for or against those actions is a right and a privilege that we all share because of the sacrifices made by those who serve to keep this country free and safe from those who want nothing more to destroy it and all those liberties that it affords.

The position that you have taken, that waterboarding is immoral in all situations, is akin to saying that war is immoral in all situations and that the soldiers pulling the triggers and dropping the bombs are not really soldiers, they are simply murderers. If you choose to ignore the reasoning and consequences for such actions as waterboarding or warfare and simply assign a morality value to it in the abstract, you may make things easier for yourself by having to avoid actual critical thought, but you are not living in reality and you are not adding anything to the conversation.

Oh, and as for Douglas K....in light of the fact that you actually describe the capture of the 9/11 mastermind as a "kidnapping" and disparage the US military personnel stationed at GITMO as "people who treat the detainees like animals"... it appears that you have gone so far off the grid of rational thought that I cannot justify wasting any more time dignifying your blind, bleeding heart bullshit with a response. Go read a book or two and come back when you think you can at least sound like a little less of a degenerate.

What about these stories where Cheney's daughter says he's speaking out now because he's afraid of prosecution? Nothing motivates the old bastard like having his own plump ass on the line.

Still, I don't think these stories matter unless we respond correctly. It's one thing if Michael Vick mistreats dogs to death but if Cheney does it to humans, we're supposed to let it go.

 And make no mistake about it: People died during these interrogations. One reason I've heard that Obama changed his mind on the torture photographs is that they're so hideous, that our image couldn't take it.

 We've got to respond to this with more than some outraged blog posts. If Pelosi's involved then she goes too. But start with Cheney. He's proud of breaking the law. So what are we waiting for? Let's put the miserable old fuck on trial.

JJ: You haven't lost your capacity for absurdity since I last encountered your nonsense. First of all, your drivel is a typical piece of cherry picking that has ignored the fact that 9/11 was, in part, a response to abuses of Muslims (Palestinians, Iraqi children murdered by sanctions during the Bush I and Clinton regimes, etc.) by the United States. The sort of thing that Chalmers Johnson defined as blowback. Try Googling that one.

Admiral Blair, our new chief spook, said that torture works. That got a lot of publicity from neocons and their stenographers in the corporate media. Blair also said that what we got through torture wasn't worth the cost, but that was ignored by neocons and the corporate media.

Someone made a plausible estimate recently that revenge for torture at Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo has cost more American lives than did 9/11. And still counting.

When a wingnut decides to actually TRY the stuff he/she complains about, whether it's being waterboarded to prove it's not torture, or to spend 30 days living on minimum wage working two jobs because all the poor need is incentive, the wingnut seems to wind up sounding like a liberal at the end of their attempt.

Odd how that works, isn't it...

David:

I don't know much about this Mancow guy, but I'll say one thing about him, he has more manballs then Hannity to at least try waterboarding and then be able to know what the hell he's talking about.

I don't know about manballs. He might just be a total dumbass. I mean, did he really think waterboarding just involved throwing water on their face? WTF? I think Hannity actually knows how awful it is - which is why you won't be seeing him do this any time soon.

The immoral and shameful attempts to justify this technique (they did worse to us on 9/11, they'd blow us up in a heartbeat, etc) are born, IMO, from cowardice and fear.

Cowardice and fear are certainly possibilities, but there are probably other factors, none of which - stupidity, ignorance, dittohead habits, sociopath, psychopath, etc. - to be proud of.

At least JJ has enough sense to use a pseudonym making it difficult to expose him to the public ridicule in person he deserves.

Contact Sean Hannity at: http://hannity.com/contactus.asp

I know most readers already know this but I'll repeat it for the benefit of JJ.

Only a few people know the actual number of people that were interrogated while being waterboared by the CIA and their contractors and they aren't talking. A myth has been floated by the Cheney crowd that people like JJ now repeat as a fact that just three detainees were waterboarded in support of the their argument that the end justified the means.

Remember that it wasn't just waterboarding that was at issue here. Stress positions, sleep deprivation, prisoners locked in small places with lots of insects, and all the stuff we saw in the Abu Garaib (sp?) pictures were all used at a variety of places. Obama back tracked on releasing the 2000+ new pictures of disgusting acts committed by U.S. officials or their agents. It is widely acknowledged that most of these things "crossed the line" of the definition of torture.

JJ, after what Bush/Cheney have done to our honor, I'd sure hate to be a U.S. soldier that is captured.

JJ, my apologies. I assumed your reading comprehension was somewhat above third grade level. I won't make that mistake again. Obviously, I didn't describe the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as "kidnapping". I was drawing a parallel situation in which YOU were kidnapped, treated like an animal, etc., to illustrate how much harsher the conditions were than in Mancow's radio station. A real torture situation is a few orders of magnitude worse than voluntarily lying down on a table in a controlled test environment surrounded by supportive people where some guy pours water over your nose and mouth for a few seconds with your consent, and you are free to stop it at any time.

Oh, with regard to this:

Go read a book or two and come back when you think you can at least sound like a little less of a degenerate.

Hilarious. Do you wingnuts even have a concept of "irony"?

Does no one care that the gov feels it has to tax unemployment benefits to train Americans to be proficient at this?

So, why do background checks to keep violent criminals out of the workplace, while promoting "hire a vet"?

I think Hannity actually knows how awful it is - which is why you won't be seeing him do this any time soon.

Which is why he's still saying it isn't torture? How do you all get around in those tiny little brains?

No, the give-away is the asshole sign he's wearing (goatee). Nothing against the real take home lesson. I'm sure that's real. But the whole scene was a fraud.

I think that he finally got laid, and she's a liberal girl, and he's staging a conversion. Now, he'll "get it".

All in all, not bad. If it gets the Carl's Jr. herd stampeding off in his direction, that's more than most progressives have accomplished this week!

Posted by: Bill Bodden | May 22, 2009 9:00:56 PM

"At least JJ has enough sense to use a pseudonym making it difficult to expose him to the public ridicule in person he deserves."

Not that public ridicule isn't torture?

A sense of civility doesn't necessarily hurt the debate, does it? Both sides of this liberal/conservative fence seem to relish rediculing each other... and the justification? "Because they did it to us..." sounds all too familiar. Perhaps retaliation isn't done so much out of cowardice or fear but out of anger and vengance - there are other possibilities that don't involve calling someone an idiot, coward, stupid, or ignorant. I've lived in the middle east, and I've watched a video of a French soldier having his head cut off. The people doing this were not cowards and fearful. I doubt the people waterboarding were cowards and fearful. It is sometimes easy to throw insults around outside the environment in which these acts ocurred, but it is also easy to take a breath and show a little civlity with each other.

Just a thought.

Cheers all.

sheesh, er, ridicule.

sheesh, replace rediculing with ridiculing? sheepish grin

Shorter JJ,

We had to destroy the Constitution in order to save it.

Bill Bodden wrote:

"....9/11 was, in part, a response to abuses of Muslims (Palestinians, Iraqi children murdered by sanctions during the Bush I and Clinton regimes, etc.) by the United States...."

For you to try to justify 9/11 is just incredible.

George HW Bush sent the US military to Kuwait in response to Saddams invasion of his defenseless neighbor.

Saddam is the one responsible for dragging his country into the war that has been ongoing from 1989 to present. Recall that the present Iraqi action was triggered in 2003 by Saddams failure to abide by the ceasefire of 1990, including harboring and financing terrorists. Can you deny this?

Saddam lied his way back into active conflict in 2003 by intentionally deceiving Iran (who he had had a bloody 8 year border war with in the 1980s, and before he was greatly weakened after the US pushed him out of Iraq in 1990) into thinking he had or was close to having WMDs.

The Iranians knew Saddam had used WMDs on his own citizens (the Kurdish rebellion in the north) and would have little hesitation in using them on an enemy.

Saddam lied, people died.

If a madman goes into the middle of the street and waves a gun, and the police shoot him to protect the community, but the gun is later found to be unloaded, are the police the bad guys for this?

The 1989 Gulf War, and the sanctions that followed are directly attributable to the aggression of Saddam Hussein.

The 2003 resumption of armed conflict is also attributable to Saddam.

He put his country through all of this.

Most liberals seem to wish that Saddam was still in power, running his political enemies thru the plastic shredder.

Liberal 'blame America' thinking is the ticking time bomb in the Democratic party. Jeremiah Wright should be your party chairman.

This was done to a Playboy journalist a few months back who also thought he could last 15 seconds. He, like Mancow didn't think it would be too bad. Guess how many he lasted and what his reaction afterwards was. Check out the video.

There is more discussion of what occurs during the process and less of the playful radio show jocularity of the Mancow video.

I respect both these guys for being willing to try it out and speak honestly afterwards.

-tl

Hey wingnuts - straight from one of your own:

Greta Van Susteren: Is waterboarding torture or enhanced interrogation techniques, what words do we use on this?

McCain: It's torture. It's in violation of the Geneva Conventions of the international agreement on torture treaty...singed during the Reagan administration. It goes all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition. It's not a new technique and it is certainly torture.

But hey, don't let me interrupt your verbal gymnastics on whether pulling out someone's fingernails is torture or merely a manicure.

I think Hannity actually knows how awful it is - which is why you won't be seeing him do this any time soon. Which is why he's still saying it isn't torture? How do you all get around in those tiny little brains?

Since my point obviously went over your head...

The implication I made is that Hannity is a lying sack of shit. He knows it's torture, but since he's just a talking bobblehead doll for the GOP he says it's not. Is that clear enough for your giant over-sized brain to comprehend?

On Hannity: He isn't a conservative but just a salesman. All he does is recite memorized talking points. Pay him enough and he'd be doing the same thing for Obama at CNN...

Fox has a very smart business model. They have real libertarians (judge napolitano), quasi-libertarians (beck)and moderates (O'Reilly, etc.) Hannity's role is to toss red meat at the christian conservative set, most of whom are too dumb to realize that Hannity is just a phony. Consequently it should be pretty obvious that he would never follow through with anything like being waterboarded.

PS, I salute this guy for walking the walk. I've never heard of him so I have no clue what his views are but obviously he cares about the truth and has some personal courage.

I am glad it shows a white person getting waterboarded,maybe they will realize it's torture when they see one of their own undergo this barbaric crap!!!

Mancow is a moron,he was trying to prove waterboarding was not torture,the republiturds and the reichwingers only care about the continued nazification of america ,that's why they got their panties in a bunch and are crying the sky is falling since we have a legally elected african-american president,he inherited this economy from the Bush cabal.Who all should be put in jail for treason by the way.

Torture has been routine U.S. practice from the early days of the conquest of Indian territory (John Quincy Adams defended "that hapless race of native Americans, which we are exterminating with such merciless and perfidious cruelty ... among the heinous sins of this nation, for which I believe God will one day bring [it] to judgement").

Furthermore, torture has been the least of the many crimes of aggression, terror, subversion and economic strangulation in U.S. history. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in 1898, calling for intervention in Cuba, lauded our record "of conquest, colonization, and territorial expansion unequalled by any people in the 19th century," and urged that it is "not to be curbed now."

In the past sixty years, victims worldwide have also endured the CIA's "torture paradigm," developed at a cost reaching $1 billion annually, according to historian Alfred McCoy, who shows that the methods surfaced with little change in Abu Ghraib.

Now comes the latest torturer-in-chief. Alain Nairn observes, Obama's ban "doesn't even prohibit direct torture by Americans outside environments of 'armed conflict,' which is where much torture happens anyway since many repressive regimes aren't in armed conflict ... his is a return to the status quo ante, the torture regime of Ford through Clinton, which, year by year, often produced more US-backed strapped-down agony than was produced during the Bush/Cheney years."

"Small wonder that the President advises us to look forward, not backward -- a convenient doctrine for those who hold the clubs. Those who are beaten by them tend to see the world differently, much to our annoyance...Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon, not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity, but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that lie ahead. (The Torture Memos)

Can someone cite any damage that waterboading subjects suffer, (apart from being momentarily frightened)?

If the Mancow video proves anything, it proves that he was not damaged in any way. He needed no medical treatment and suffered no injury of any kind.

This simply does not rise to the level of 'inhumane' and 'barbaric' as the Democrats allege.

Joe,

Mancow endured waterboarding for a grand total of 5 seconds. He was not strapped down, he had not been subject to any mistreatment prior to that, there were paramedics present, and he could stop it at any time.

The point is partially the mistreatment (and psychological torture is still torture), but the other point is that victims of torture will say what they think the torturers want to say in order to stop the torture. Any "information" gathered is most likely not true, just what the torturers want to be true.

This simply does not rise to the level of 'inhumane' and 'barbaric' as the Democrats allege.

Try it yourself. Four times, fifteen seconds each. Then come back and try spouting your bullshit about how it isn't inhumane or barbaric. (Of course, you might still say it, but you'd be lying.)

Simple social rule ignore/never trust a guy wearing an asshole sign (goatee)!

JJ, 1), the twin towers were imploded so they wouldn't fall on lower Manhattan; those fighting American imperialism didn't succeed much more than they did the first time, 2). there are no innocent Americans, 3). who does it first isn't a factor in determining moral evil.

Wanna help? Cut yer balls off and shove 'em in yer mouth! You really think that makes you safer? I can tell you that when I'm stateside the techniques I've been taught will not go unused. As pointed out, they are very effective. I've already had buds that have come back tell me that problem clubbers are getting pulled into the washroom, before they're kicked out. What goes around comes around. Could it be one of our special security sweeps, where you get your door kicked in, shot and your daughter raped? Right. That's only OK in Sadr City.

How many times have I said that it all comes with empire? Well, this one is literally so, right down to learning from the Spanish and our architect of empire, TR, being an early American defender of the practice. That's just a big coincidence, right? Come on, people! What is a benevolent empire? At least we can't call it a pax americana, because we haven't left any pax, since the 40s. Korea, Viet Nam, Panama, Iraq...no declaration, no peace treaty. That's how empires fight. Can you honestly say that we don't seek world domination?

At least get the facts .

" If you believe that waterboarding is always wrong, regardless of how many American lives it may save or how much vital information it may produce..that's fine, you have the right to that opinion."--JJ

This is not opinion. This is a matter of law, plain and simple. People were executed for it after World War II.

One classic GOP trick is to frame the issue. In this case torture has come to mean waterboarding. This protects them from being blamed for a wider and more explosive range of abuse.

When the original pictures broke back in 2004, this is what a leading GOP Senator had to say in a CBS News story:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters, "The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience."

 It does explain why President Obama doesn't want to release the pictures. If the public ever found out what really went on in Iraq "interrogations", there'd be a revolt.

 Everything about Iraq had to be spun just right. They didn't even want us to see the pictures of our soldiers' caskets coming home, lest we turn against the war.

 If you ever wanted to know how sick the Bush administration really was, ponder their stated reason for not showing pictures of flag-draped coffins. They said they felt it was an invasion of the soldiers' privacy. Controlling public opinion - according to them - had nothing to do with it.

 So even after these young people had been killed in the service of their country, they were still being used in spin by the White House under President Bush and Dick Cheney.

 Think about that on Memorial Day.

fbear wrote:

"victims of torture will say what they think the torturers want to say in order to stop the torture. Any "information" gathered is most likely not true, just what the torturers want to be true."

And this is true of any type of interrogation, whether 'torture' or not.

The subject may simply say what he thinks will put an end to the interrogation.

Just to reiterate, this isn't just torture. Waterboarding is unique among tortures. That's why it's popular today.

To repeat, it leaves no marks and you can't scream. Ask one of the brutes that work at the Copper Penny if that isn't something they're interested in. What do you think the PPB will say when your big evidence is that your shirt is wet?

Back in the 60s and 70s there were a gazillion studies done to determine if TV violence causes actual antisocial behavior. The bottom line seems to be that it will, but only if there is an opportunity to directly imitate the behavior. It has to be something that you have an opportunity to do directly. As such, I think we can guarantee that the bulk of people waterboarded in the next 50 years will be done to Americans, by Americans.

The subject may simply say what he thinks will put an end to the interrogation.

Which is the point, come full turn. We are not using it to get information. We know that doesn't work. It's just like everyone that says the neocons are a failure, not seeing they're getting everything they want. They aren't pursuing the thing you say they're failing at. Same here. It's to get a narrative that supports their a priori policy decision. It is designed not to be veridical. "What the torturers want to be true" works, when the government implicitly supports them. It is the character of the government, and that character has not changed between administrations.

If any other country did this, you would be calling for us to nuke them. I agree. Any pair of bodies in a silo today got the balls?

BTW, BO is really suborning these right wink wackos by reacting to everything they say/do. Why does PC speech only march down the left side of the aisle? You know how far out we are? Britain just came up with a list of 100 people that can not enter Britain, as they have a long, consistent history of fact-less hate speech, and inciting antisocial behavior. Pretty much the usual suspects that we would blacklist...and who is this Weiner guy? Oh! Michael Alan Weiner is Michael Savage! We put him in the public domain- make sure you warn the public that a PBS show might be "too factual- but carte blanche for a hate monger so extreme he can't even visit London! Still waiting for DHS to investigate Hannity. Could I get up on a bus and announce that my daughter will do what I say, or I'll blow her brains out..."and I MEAN it"?

I mean, just think about it. It is SO classically American. SF, bastion of gay life. Still proud of the White Nights riots. You do that shit here, you pay the mob. Right. Yet, for three hours a day, five days a week, Michael Savage sits in the Castro and tries to convince the country that gay life needs to be eradicated, by force if necessary. No one does anything. He could be hanging from a lightpole in five minutes if anyone really gave a good goddamn.

This is just like women protesting unequal treatment. You could end it overnight, if you really wanted to. Don't fuck anyone that pays their female employees on a different scale from the men. Send the ERA back to the states. Don't have a photocopy of your mail-in vote, showing , "yes"? Then go fuck yourself. But you don't care that much.

Only a tiny minority are down with this crap. If the majority says, "no, no, no, absolutely not", it ends instantly. Would a cabbie put porn on during your ride? Why do you hear Hannity in a cab? It's a matter of social standards. You don't react the same. And anyone that even considers Clear as an ISP, has no right to EVER complain about right-wing talk radio.

Up Next - Sean Hannity!

Make a pledge and put pressure on Hannity to live up to his promise to support the troops:

waterboardhannityforcharity.com

I'm pretty positive he would have admitted to wearing ladie's underwear if they upped his total time to about 10 seconds. On the air. And sworn it was true. That is, if he wasn't able to stop it whenever he wanted to.

http://www.newsy.com/videos/media_figures_try_out_torture

The wrong video is being shown here. Superimpose this over video of 911 victims jumping from the towers, then decide which you detest more. It's no coincidence when Obama releases details of "torture" methods and frequency while witholding the documented benefits produced.

It's amazing how liberals are shocked, shocked that waterboarding (which caused NO physical damage, and momentary mental anguish) is / was allowed ---

--- but they see no problem with an abortionist reaching in the womb with a scalpel and slicing a baby's arms and legs off.

They wouldn't put a dog down without anaesthetic ---

--- but it's okay to inject saline into the amniotic sac and wait til the baby dies of chemical burning.

The compassion of liberals is just too much, isn't it?

Waterboarding is opposed by Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D-Chappaquiddick) because 'it's barbaric to allow someone to think they are drowning'. He should know.

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