. . . if the next attack were to happen in their neighborhood.

It will. NYC, LA, Chicago, San Francisco goodbye. Natural selection.

We are at the biblical end times: right is wrong and wrong is right.

As Colin Powel stated on Iraq: you break it, you buy it. Obama clearly owns this economy, world situation and the war on terror whether he likes it or not.

Loxodonta on April 24, 2009 at 8:10 AM

Good morning to you also. I agree, everything Pres. Obama does is about politics and he better kick into leader gear. If he even knows what that is. The Left has become great big giant bullies and as we all know bullies don’t stop until you prove your not going to put up with it. It’s like that half-a$$ Right-winged domestic terrorist “report”. Considering the lack of specificity and the timing of the release it was strictly a shot at the tea party attendees. It would be interesting to know how many actually stayed home because they thought they might be “profiled”. Please, let me wear a name tag to help them out.

Has anyone compiled a complete list of Democrats that could
fall under this premise that Leahy has layed out? They certainly
would lose some seats with all being “fair”.

Big difference between “National Security” and
someones “personal interest, power and greed”.

The silent majority will be heard from next election cycle.

JiangxiDad on April 24, 2009 at 7:20 AM

Whoa. I thought you might have left for good. Good to see you back.

These people aren’t uniformed. They are illegal, asymmetrical combatants.

If I were to get ill and the only treatment for me was derived from embryonic stems, I could refuse treatment. It would be pitting my beliefs against my outcome. Mr. Obama is tying his hands and the hands of those who come after him based totally on political machinations instead of what is best for the country. There have been and will forever be mistakes made. Presidents have made the best decisions based on the information they have at the time, to later prosecute them is folly. Anytime time you change the rules in the middle of the game no one wins.

Cindy Munford on April 24, 2009 at 6:50 AM

Good morning. Except I’m not very cheerful, so excuse me.

I’m thinking that Obama’s decision has nothing to do with morality or ethics, as your’s would but everything to do with politics. As with the DHS report, this is all about criminalizing the opposition.

We shouldn’t have free speech on college campuses, because when we speak, it’s hate speech. We shouldn’t have freedom of assembly to protest at Tea Parties, because whenever we assemble, we only assemble as racists who hate a black man. We shouldn’t have freedom of religion because we are misogynists who oppose a woman’s right to choose and homophobes who oppose Gay Marriage.

For most liberals, it would be enough for us to simply be silenced and submissive. But for the most extreme leftists, we must be criminalized for our thoughts, arrested, tried and imprisoned.

Well, take me now. No need for a trial. I confess.

That is crap. Your liberty was not in danger because some freaking terrorist was nabbed in Pakistan and brought to Gitmo and questioned.

I can see it now, President Obama meets war criminals.

gag me. This guy is a trainwreck.

“Let’s take the gloves off because they are an imminent threat. We need to do whatever it takes!”

That’s the most disturbing part. The trade of security for liberty.

This is really why I think the American Republic is at it’s end – the other side has been escalating the politics of political destruction since Watergate. Eventually we will arrive at shooting at each other because the other side just won’t stop taking it to the next level. No Democracy can survive in this kind of environment.

So yeah – they can prosecutes – and we’ll be damned sure to return the favor to them.

HondaV65 on April 24, 2009 at 7:04 AM

Read this. Another commenter linked to it yesterday. It talks about the demise of our present system (something expected and cheered by the author) and the creation of it’s successor. It’s long, but worth it, and curiously optimistic on a certain level, if not for us, than for the generations that succeed us.

http://www.american.com/archive/2009/april-2009/the-coming-of-the-fourth-american-republic

Next, the libs state that a certain Japanese individual was killed for the same thing (waterboarding) that we supposedly did. Another liberal lie (I know redundant to say liberal and lying). The Japanese POW was sentenced to fifteen years, his crimes were beating our POWs with sticks and clubs (funny how liberals omit such details), stealing Red Cross Supplies (funny how that’s omitted too) other physical abuse, water torture (running water into open nostrils and mouths of prisoners without any medical personnel present) which does not even compare to waterboarding committed by the US, and what that POW did was so dangerous it is not practiced in the US or any civilized country.

As for the “183 times” ridiculousness. That refers to each water unit dropped into the waterboarded person’s cloth covering. Further, there were explicit limits as to the amounts of such water flows in any two hour setting, forty eight hour period and limit on how many times it could be used per month and time periods that must intervene between each usage. I believe it was no more than 6 water units in two hours, and the 180-plus times refers not to sessions of waterboarding, but to “pours” — that is, to instances of water being poured on the subject.

Under a strict set of rules, every pour of water had to be counted — and the number of pours was limited.

Also: Waterboarding interrogation sessions were permitted on no more than five days within any 30-day period.

No more than two sessions were permitted in any 24-hour period.

A session could last no longer than two hours.
There could be at most six pours of water lasting ten seconds or longer — and never longer than 40 seconds — during any individual session.

Water could be poured on a subject for a combined total of no more than 12 minutes during any 24 hour period.

You do the math.

ALSO important points:

1) Such detailed rules suggest that serious thought was given to where to draw the line between coercion — “stress and duress” — and torture. You can disagree with where those lines were drawn, but I don’t see how you can say no attempt was made to set limits.

Not only lawyers but also physicians and psychologists were involved in these decisions. Indeed, these interrogations were supervised by physicians and psychologists who had the power to stop them. (My column today touches on this question.)

Time and intensity are relevant factors. Who would argue that a single night of sleep deprivation constitutes torture? Who would argue that a month of sleep deprivation is not?

2) Remember that Abu Zubaydah said: “Brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardships.”

Any interrogator worth his salt would understand this means it is his job to bring his subject to the point at which cooperation is no longer betrayal but permitted according to his religious beliefs. Can that be achieved short of torture? Sure. Can it be achieved without coercive interrogation techniques? Not bloody likely.

These and other fascinating analyses based upon sources contacted by the corner of national review contain the relevant details that libtards refuse to state in bad faith. These details show there was such a legal framework that you couldn’t possibly call this technique torture.

The same liberals who misrepresent our limited interrogation techniques applaud our President who grovels before foreign leaders and who gives foreign leaders abject apologies to nations that have a documented history of employing the following “enhanced interrogation methods”: electrocution, starvation, dismemberment, genital mutilation, disembowelment, eye-gouging, and beheading.
The NKVD, of Russia, one example, employed some of these methods not for purposes of interrogation, but for the sake of inflicting pain and destroying the humanity of the victim — thereby crushing the spirit of anyone allied with the victim. (The progressive party morons who are in a lather today over the supposed barbarity of our CIA techniques, are the same party morons who supported the use of the NKVD’s techniques in Russia and other peoples ‘paradises’)

In fact, some of these foreign leaders who are unapologetic about their own ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ hail from countries where these “enhanced interrogation methods” aren’t mere history, but current practice. Yet there’s no evidence that they offered apologies on behalf of their respective countries either to their own citizens or to foreign lands. And there’s no evidence that the the president rebuked any of these leaders. On the contrary, there’s evidence that our President grinned at them, joked with them, embraced them, and bowed before them.

If the libtards are really interested in the scope of proper interrogation techniques perhaps the republicans could get behind a balanced blue ribbbon panel to investigate the following:

review all relevant interrogation techniques and then report to the President which are effective?

Then the president can indicate which of these effective techniques:

we never do, no matter what (because they “shock the conscience” and therefore constitute torture under American law);

we will only do in the most extreme circumstances and under specific presidential authority;

the DNI may authorize on his own under approved guidelines;

SOP for all qualified CIA interrogators;

SOP for all military interrogators (e.g. the Army Field Manual).

Isn’t that the way to strike a balance?

If the democraps and libtards were serious

Because we have values. Some of those values include the fact that even the worst of our enemies deserve basic services and have basic rights. It’s the same reason why even prisoners in our jails, regardless of the crime, sleep on beds and have medical services. And that is what makes this country great.

ckoeber on April 24, 2009 at 1:00 AM

What value makes the fear and discomfort caused by waterboarding a terrorist less acceptable than the deaths of innocents caused by that terrorist?

This is really why I think the American Republic is at it’s end – the other side has been escalating the politics of political destruction since Watergate. Eventually we will arrive at shooting at each other because the other side just won’t stop taking it to the next level. No Democracy can survive in this kind of environment.

So yeah – they can prosecutes – and we’ll be damned sure to return the favor to them.

Call me when we’ve strapped some dude to the rack or skinned him alive or served him his own roasted baby over rice a la AQI. Then maybe I’ll have this moral dilemma about “torture”.

Scaring someone with crickets and making them bob for apples doesn’t quite cut it for me.

Thats all we need. Worth waiting for.

Second, to the libbies here: Which city are you willing to consign to flames because of your unwillingness to use enhanced interrogation methods that are proven to work. Can you honestly tell me that you are willing to look into the eyes of the fallen and then into the eyes of their loved ones and tell them that you let (city of your choice) and all of their loved ones die because you didn’t want to deprive the poor little terrorists of their “rights”?

Finally, Terrorists such as those in Al Queda should be classified under the Roman law categorization of hostis humani generis–the enemy of humanity. Under that category, they do not possess rights. The only thing we should do with any of them that we capture is wring them dry of any information they might have and then introduce them to the nearest gallows–ropes are reusable. Not 3 hots and a cot and a personalized copy of the Koran at Club Gitmo.

Sorry if that offends the sensibilities of the little libbies here–no, I’m not sorry for that–the only thing I’m sorry for is your incredible naivete.