Ask Me Help Desk - Keeping America Safe

Obama commented recently that he wakes up thinking about how to keep America safe and goes to sleep thinking about how to keep America safe.

In what way did releasing the "torture memos" keep the USA safe? Regardless of whether the use of these harsh interrogation methods is right or wrong, how did the release of the memos make the country safer?

How did taking all of the techniques off the table for future use make us safer? Are we safer today because American interrogators of POWs can no longer slap POWs in the face, can no longer "wall" them, and can no longer even insult them (per the US Military Code of Conduct pertaining to interrogation of captured enemies)? Forget water boarding... we can no longer even call them bad names or insult their mamas to get a response from them.

How does making it harder to obtain information that could prevent another terrorist attack make America safe?

Elliot

The answer that is programmed into the left is that the interrogations were somehow helping recruiting for Jihadistan. I don't buy it . There motivations were outlined for us a decade ago by OBL . Our support for Israel is the main recruiting tool .

Hmmm... I seem to remember that we were attacked on 9/11, long before we were implementing any sort of interrogations, much less enhanced ones.

Seems to me that al Qaeda has better recruiting methods than our use of hard interrogations.

Also, if the fact that we are using such techniques is the way that aQ recruits new members, how does publicizing that fact by releasing the memos make us safer?

Sorry Tom, but the Libs are going to have to come up with better answers than that.

Here's my take: Obama does indeed think about how to make America safer. Then he does the opposite, because he doesn't believe that America has a right to be safer than anyone else. It's all part of the liberal idea that everyone has to be exactly the same in all respects, or else the world is "unfair".

Even better . It can be argued that the only reason that there was an intel gap requiring enhanced interrogations was due to "policy decisions" made by the previous administration. I do not recall President Bush saying that people like Jamie Gorelick should be subject to a criminal probe for creating the wall of separations. I don't see the Torch Torrecelli being frog marched for creating legislation that gutted our intel gathering abilities.

Well Bush was rated by how many times we were attacked right. 100 days no attacks. By your parties standards he is doing a perfect job.

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Originally Posted by ETWolverine

How does making it harder to obtain information that could prevent another terrorist attack make America safe?

Hello El:

You make the mistaken assumption that it IS harder. It isn't.

The problem here, is you want America to become our enemy. Of course, if we do succumb to their depths, they've won.

I, on the other hand, believe we can defeat our enemy AND remain true to our values... We've done it before.

Plus, I'm dumbfounded by your assertion that the terrorists will somehow be emboldened because they know we're not going to slap them if we catch them. I don't get the logic. Nope, I don't get it. But it's not me. It's because the assertion is totally devoid of logic.

excon

PS> By the way, when did torture become a "family value"?

True. Despite decreasing military spending, kowtowing to enemies of the USA, bowing and giving 'hood handshakes to foreign leaders, and opening up intelligence secrets and techniques to the enemy, there have not yet been any attacks. But it's only day 93.

But that also means that when an attack does come, it's all on him, not on Bush. (And I use the word "when" intentionally. Because as Bidden said, this President will be tested.)

Elliot

Hello again, El:

How patriotic is it to want American to be attacked again??

Not very. What's happened to you guys??

excon

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I, on the other hand, believe we can defeat our enemy AND remain true to our values... We've done it before

Under duress KSM revealed that there was a plot on the Brooklyn Bridge. Armed with that information NYPD arrested the person revealed . He had acetylene torches who would have cut the cables if the plot wasn't disrupted in a timely manner .

The President signed off on targeted assassinations in Pakistan. In which direction was his moral compass pointed when he made that call ?

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello El:

You make the mistaken assumption that it IS harder. It isn't.

The problem here, is you want America to become our enemy. Of course, if we do succumb to their depths, they've won.

Bull. If we are here and if America survives, and if the Constitution continues to be the rule of law, we win, regardless of how we treat some POWs who would gladly slit our throats like Daniel Pearl.

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I, on the other hand, believe we can defeat our enemy AND remain true to our values... We've done it before.

When? When have we engaged in a war where we didn't use harsh methods to question POWs? What you seem to not realize is that we have ALWAYS used these techniques during wartime against enemies. We are no better in this respect than any other country... with the exception that our detainees have better life expectancies than our captured soldiers do in enemy POW camps.

Quote:

Plus, I'm dumbfounded by your assertion that the terrorists will somehow be emboldened because they know we're not going to slap them if we catch them. I don't get the logic. Nope, I don't get it. But it's not me. It's because the assertion is totally devoid of logic.

No, it is completely logical. You just refuse to accept the Middle-Eastern mentality that what you and I call pity or compassion, they call weakness... and weakness is something that MUST be exploited against an enemy. I'm not even talking about a religious requirement, though that exists too. I'm talking about a cultural phenomenon that existed long before Islam did... a desert mentality. In the desert only the strong survive, the weak perish and serve as resources for the strong. If you start from that point, which is the point that the enemy starts from, all the rest falls into place.

If they see that American interrogators are becoming more "compassionate", they will see it as weakness caused by our political system and the general weakness of Americans. They will think that we don't have the stomach for a long fight against terrorism. They will see it as a political and moral victory of terrorism over the American way of life and the weak stomachs of most American people. And THAT will embolden them to commit more terrorism.

That you cannot see this is dumbfounding to me. Recent history over the past 20 years has demonstrated this fact over and over again.

Every time Israel has shown compassion, the terrorist attacks increase in intensity. Every time the USA has turned its back on attacks against targets abroad, there have been more attacks against US targets. We did nothing about Mogadishu, and so Mogadishu's violence increased. We did nothing against the militias in Iraq, and militia attacks in Iraq increased.

As soon as the surge happened, the militias fell in line. As soon as Israel fought back in the West Bank, terrorist attacks fell. As soon as we attacked Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11, the Arab world saw that we would no longer tolerate attacks and will fight back... and attacks, even against our foreign-based targets have decreased significantly.

Compassion in the Arab world leads to increased attacks EVERY TIME.

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PS> By the way, when did torture become a "family value"?

It's not a family value. It's a security value. That's why they don't have "family day" at the CIA... it ain't a family-friendly business. But it is a necessary part of maintaining the security of our country.

And it isn't torture.

Have you read the actual memo that discusses the legality of these techniques and describes them in detail? Or are you just making assumptions about whether they are torture or not without having read about it?

Elliot

Quote:

Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, El:

How patriotic is it to want American to be attacked again???

Not very. What's happened to you guys???

excon

I don't want it to happen. Not the way that the Libs wanted the surge to fail. I just expect that it will happen regardless of what I want, because Obama is making every mistake in the book to make it more probable that it will happen. I believe that it is inevitable if we continue on this weak, kowtowing, butt-kissing, intelligence-secret-revealing path Obama is leading us on.

What I WANT is for Obama to change directions and show a little strength in his international relations and his actions vis-à-vis national security.

So far, what I want doesn't matter all that much.

Elliot