[excon]

Hello:

Tomder cites National Director of Intelligence Admiral Michael McConnell as his source for correcting the recent NIE. He certainly might be right about that.

However, the same day he was telling congress THAT stuff, he was also telling them that if HE were waterboarded, HE would think HE was being tortured.

The next day, after having been roundly beaten up by the dufus in chief, he came back to congress and said what he really meant was that if he were swimming and got water up his nose that it would hurt... "Yeah, that's what I meant".

So I ask: Since it's clear that after visiting with the dufus in chief he changed his mind about waterboarding, why wouldn't you think he'd do the same thing about the NIE?

I ask this question knowing that the dufus in chief likes to mold the intel to suit his agenda.

excon

[RickJ]

Which dufus in chief of history did not mold the intel to suit his agenda? :)

[tomder55]

I don't blame you if you don't wish to read the 16 page expose from the New Yorker Magazine that Sen. Feinstein was using in her quizzing of McConnell . But here is the relevant part.

Waterboarding was not a part of the training when McConnell went through SERE, although it sometimes has been. “You know what waterboarding is?” he asked. “You lay somebody on this table, or put them in an inclined position, and put a washcloth over their face, and you just drip water right here”—he pointed to his nostrils. “Try it! What happens is, water will go up your nose. And so you will get the sensation of potentially drowning. That's all waterboarding is.”
I asked if he considered that torture.
McConnell refused to answer directly, but he said, “My own definition of torture is something that would cause excruciating pain.”
Did waterboarding fit that description?
Referring to his teen-age days as a lifeguard, he said, “I know one thing. I'm a water-safety instructor, but I cannot swim without covering my nose. I don't know if it's some deviated septum or mucus membrane, but water just rushes in.” For him, he said, “waterboarding would be excruciating. If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture.”
I queried McConnell again, later, about his views on waterboarding, since this exchange seemed to suggest that he personally condemned it. He rejected that interpretation. “You can do waterboarding lots of different ways,” he said. “I assume you can get to the point that a person is actually drowning.” That would certainly be torture, he said.

A Reporter at Large: The Spymaster: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Here are some other parts of the exchange :

Couldn't the information be obtained through other means?
“No,” McConnell said. “You can say that absolutely.” He again cited the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. “He would not have talked to us in a hundred years. Tough guy. Absolutely committed. He had this mental image of himself as a warrior and a martyr. No way he would talk to us.” Among the things that Mohammed confessed to was the murder of Daniel Pearl. And yet few people involved in the investigation of Pearl's death believe that Mohammed had anything to do with the crime; another man, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, was convicted of killing Pearl.

So what he said to Lawrence Wright was that he did not consider waterboarding torture and he thought it a necessary technique .

Then Feinstein takes the part of the article where he said it would be torture to him ,and twists his words to make it sound that he considered the techinque as torture (from his testimony ):

SEN. FEINSTEIN: Then the quote that I'm reading directly from the article, “Whether it's torture by anyone else's definition, for me it would be torture,” is not correct.
MR. MCCONNELL: I said in — what I was talking about was water going into my nose given the context of swimming and teaching people to swim. So it's out of context.
Now, when the journalist was checking facts, he called me back and said, “Here's what I'm going to say.” And I said, “That's not the subject of our discussion, and I ask you not to put that in the article.” We argued for 90 minutes. I said, “That will be taken out of context. It is not what our discussion was all about.” And he said, “Well, you said it. I've got — it's in my article, it's out of my control.”
So here we are. I said to him, “I will be sitting in front of a committee having this discussion, arguing about what I said that was totally out of context.”

He did not have to go to the White House to consult because his testimony is consistent with the article .As he predicted ;it was the Senate Democrats who took it out of context .

[excon]

Hello again, tom:

Those gol darn Democrats. Still doesn't change the fact that we torture and we should be ashamed.

You know, I wouldn't have any trouble with it if you'd just cop out that you do it because you don't like these suckers. I can deal with that. Why can't you just say that?

Ok, yes I would have trouble with it. But at least I'd respect you a lot more for putting the discussion on the table. Right now, by doing it and then denying it's torture is just so smarmy and disgusting. It really is.

excon

[tomder55]

Well that of course is not related to above question. Your premise was that the Admiral took his marching orders from the President . I just showed that premise is false.

As to your other points .Why should I accept your definition of the word ? I have repeatedly asked what interrogations techniques cross the line and you refuse to detail them. As far as I can tell you think any technique that makes the person uncomfortable is torture. I do not agree with that definition.

[excon]

you refuse to detail them.

Hello again, tom:

Not exactly. What I REFUSE to do is list them. Because as soon as you have a list of things that ARE torture, then you can just adjust a whack or two here and there and voilà - you ain't torturing.. I know how the game works.

Parsing the word torture is a slippery slope that won't end happily for us, if we head down that path.

From my perspective, I know what torture is. I don't need to have it explained or the techniques listed. I know it just as assuredly as the Supreme Court Justice said that, although he couldn't describe it, he knew pornography when he saw it.

I think you know what it is too. The only reason to parse the word "torture" is because you want to torture.

But, we've been here before. It's always nice to see if you've come to your senses. Yes, you did debunk my argument about the Admiral. Debunk THIS one.

excon

[kindj]

My favorite waterboard:

[tomder55]

Ex I will concede that by your definition waterboarding is in your view torture.

We now know from testimony from CIA chief Michael Hayden that waterboarding was used a total of 3 times on Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, mastermind of attack on the USS Cole, Abu Zubaydah, the brains behind the thwarted millennium attacks, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who directed the 9/11 attacks. According to his testimony the CIA got a quarter of all the useful human intelligence it obtained from 2002 to 2006 from this trio .

We also found out from his testimony that the leading Democrats of both houses of Congress were briefed on this fact .(Madam Mimi and Senator Jay Rockefeller )

[excon]

Hello again, tom:

I too, will concede that torture works. That only makes it more dangerous and even more repugnant.

Maybe you don't see the slippery slope I'm talking about, or you clearly see it and are thrilled about it. Which one are you?

You see, if it's OK to torture, then it's really only a matter of deciding WHO to torture - not IF. You seem to be saying they only used it THREE times, so it's really OK. It ISN'T OK, even if you believe them. I don't. Plus, you also seem to think that it'll stop with three. I don't know why you would think that.

If it's OK to torture, what's to stop them from torturing a drug suspect who has a lot of important stuff the DEA wants to know? Once you go down that slippery slope, the answer is, of course, NOTHING. I suspect that you'd like that kind of situation going on.

excon

[Dark_crow]

Vice President Cheney on Thursday vigorously defended the use of harsh interrogation techniques on a few suspected terrorists, saying that the methods made up “a tougher program, for tougher customers” and might have averted another attack on the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/wa...-intel.html?hp

[Wondergirl]

might have averted another attack

"Might have" - handy little words.

[Dark_crow]

"Might have" - handy little words.

Certainty only appears after a fact. I can believe someone is going to punch me in the face but can only be certain if it takes place.

[Wondergirl]

Certainty only appears after a fact. I can believe someone is going to punch me in the face but can only be certain if it takes place.

I've been praying that there is never another terrorist attack on U.S. shores. I might have averted an attack.

[George_1950]

Hello again, tom:

I too, will concede that torture works. That only makes it more dangerous and even more repugnant.

Maybe you don't see the slippery slope I'm talking about, or you clearly see it and are thrilled about it. Which one are you?

You see, if it's ok to torture, then it's really only a matter of deciding WHO to torture - not IF. You seem to be saying they only used it THREE times, so it's really ok. It ISN'T ok, even if you believe them. I don't. Plus, you also seem to think that it'll stop with three. I don't know why you would think that.

If it's ok to torture, what's to stop them from torturing a drug suspect who has a lot of important stuff the DEA wants to know? Once you go down that slippery slope, the answer is, of course, NOTHING. I suspect that you'd like that kind of situation going on.

excon

excon, this ain't personal, but you are terribly naïve. It amazes me that, on the one hand you are a critic of Bush in his pursuit of peace in Iraq (when the war was won); but obtaining the peace you clamor for would require the utmost use of force that you complain about in water boarding, which has been reserved for just three murderers. You are a pacifist, not a civil libertarian, in my view. None of the victims on 9/11 were afforded due process; and none were captured on a battlefield before paying the ultimate sacrifice. It may be your view that entering Iraq was a mistake, and you are entitled to that view; but if it offends you that the U.S. considers these three as murdering terrorists, then I am relieved that you are perched in whatever tower you find yourself at this time, and not representing this great country in its decisions to protect itself. I can just picture you now, sitting on a destroyer in the Pacific in 1945, Japanese kamikazes trying to sink your ship or your neighbor's, and you are sitting there saying you don't want to violate the pilot's right of due process. Slippery slope with terrorists engaged in urban warfare; I need a toddy.

[excon]

Hello again, George:

You've seen one too many episodes of "24".

excon

[Dark_crow]

Al-Qaeda after being chased from Afghanistan has found a safe haven inside Pakistan, and is currently training agents to infiltrate the United States for the purpose of killing civilians. Do you feel safer knowing name, rank and jihad number are all that's required of a captured al-Qaeda terrorist? To protect my family, I want the “water boarding” option included among presidential powers.

[Wondergirl]

To protect my family, I want the “water boarding” option included among presidential powers.

Have you ever been waterboarded? If so, you know you would say anything--anything at all--to get it to stop. I would not trust the "confessions" of anyone who has been waterboarded or tortured. History bears that out, that victims of torture lie just to get the torture to stop.

[George_1950]

Have you ever been waterboarded? If so, you know you would say anything--anything at all--to get it to stop. I would not trust the "confessions" of anyone who has been waterboarded or tortured. History bears that out, that victims of torture lie just to get the torture to stop.

To borrow from our late, great president: Trust but verify.

[Dark_crow]

Have you ever conducted an interrogation? Of course I know the answer because if you had you would know it is not about confessions. Information is accumulated and evaluated involving thousands of questions and answers.

[Dark_crow]

Right excon…let's all just hold hands and love each other and somewhere over the rainbow……. Now that is silly.