So many snarky one-liners. So little time………..

How ’bout a Jim Mora impression? “Hard facts? HARD FACTS??!!!! Don’t talk to me about hard facts!!!!”

Seriously, I share the above commenters views on waterboarding. It seems to me that a method that can put the fear of God in to a person without causing them any actual physical harm is the perfect balance you are looking for. There is a great article by Bret Stephens today in the WSJ taking on the argument that by methods like this we are “sinking to the level of our adversaries.” A rather ridiculous argument in light of the Allies conduct in the “Good War” of WWII where we indiscriminantly fire-bombed about 1.2 million civilians to death in Germany and Japan.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110010827

I also don’t understand the “torture never gets accurate information” argument. It’s not like we are inquisitors trying to get confessions to heresy out of these people. If you are asking them open ended questions (e.g.: where is the bomb, who have you worked with, etc), you’re either going to get information that checks out or it doesn’t. If it’s the latter, then you are no worse off than before. I also think that in a state of true panic, a person’s ability to effectively lie, or tell somebody “what they want to hear” is going to be greatly reduced.

This’ll have Keith Olbermann spitting flames tonight.

Why do conservative blogs and radio hosts keep providing this douche with free advertising? You’re only legitimizing him and increasing his viewership.

That’s a hard fact that they really ought to deal with at some point.

Facts? Surely you’re not that naive, Bryan.

To them, facts are nuanced innuendo, sprinkled with a surgically excised phrase quoted out of context.

I’d like to see that, reallly would like to see that.
Best one yet !!

benjamin on November 6, 2007 at 12:14 PM

Yup. That’s among the reasons that Mukasey didn’t want to answer one way or another — doing so opens up a whole lot of consequences that the short-sighted liberals haven’t anticipated.

Right, but the liberals don’t care what we do to our own troops. They just care about what’s done to captured terrorists.

To be sure, volunteering for it makes a significant difference.

But I don’t think Congress really wants to define it as ‘torture’ per se, which would be a de facto admission of complicity in torturing tens of thousands of our own troops and open the government up to billions of dollars in lawsuit settlements.

sonnyspats1 on November 6, 2007 at 11:56 AM

That’s my same question with regard to waterboarding. It seems even less like torture than light and sound deprivation. The fact that our own special forces guys go through it in training should be enough to end the discussion.

Of course, learning that it hasn’t been used at all in 4 years should end the discussion anyways, but it won’t.

benjamin on November 6, 2007 at 11:48 AM

Right, but the liberals don’t care what we do to our own troops. They just care about what’s done to captured terrorists.

It’s been used in our own SERE training, probably tens of thousands of times over several decades.