My six-year-old “son,” whom I’ve yet to name, tossed and turned in the dresser drawer I’d converted into a bed.
“What’s wrong boy-I-refuse-to-acknowledge-as-mine-without-a-proper-paternity-test?”
“Oh, nothing daddy,” he said precociously, “just having trouble sleeping.”
“Well then,” I said warmly, “why don’t I read you a bedtime story?” My almost-son’s eyes widened and a giant grin spread across his face.
“That sounds great, daddy! What story?”
“It’s a new one,” I told him, “just picked it up today.”
“Hold on,” the little boy interrupted. “Just so I’m clear, when you say his ‘mean parents wouldn’t allow him,’ you’re talking about international law, right? Like, it’s international law that forbids Americans from using torture, so in the story when it complains about ‘mean parents,’ it’s really about the international law?” I smiled at the small boy.
“Well, aren’t you precocious? But, yes, that’s right, I suppose that’s the comparison the book is going for.”
“Sort of an unfair metaphor, if you ask me. Takes a pretty complex situation and oversimplifies it to the point of absurdity, like it’s forcing the reader to side with the-”
“Look, kid, if you have a problem with the shady manipulation of language for the purposes of advancing an agenda, maybe I should stop reading this story now, because it’s only gonna snowball from here.”
“No, no,” the boy said, “please, keep going.”
“Waterboarding, daddy? Is that like boogie-boarding, or surfing?”
“Hahaha. My goodness, that’s rich, what a precocious little notion. But no. Waterboarding is in no way like boogie-boarding, surfboarding or anything else you have ever or will ever experience in your sheltered, pampered life.”
“So,” the boy said, “they went to some outside consultants to decipher the anti-torture laws?”
“Not consultants,” I corrected, “a two headed monster.”
“Right… two-headed monster. But what if the two-headed monster was wrong in its interpretation? Or worse, deliberately wrong? Like corrupt, what if the two-headed monster was corrupt?”
“Oh ho ho, you precocious little so-and-so, let’s read on and find out!”
“Okay,” said the boy, “this… I already have a problem with this.”
“Nope,” the boy said, “no, no, no. Uh uh. Nope.”
“Calm down, you precocious thing,” I said. “It’s just a fairy tale.”
“Slow down for a second, daddy, this is… there’s a lot, here. So, no one would be held accountable?”
“According to Uncle Dicky’s plan.”
“How would Uncle Dicky know to do that in advance? How would Uncle Dicky know to make a list with so much built-in wiggle room? And how would he know that Bybee Bradbury would see things his way? It all seems so convoluted. It just requires such tremendous foresight.” Look at that vocabulary. Six-years-old. No way this kid’s mine.
“Well, son, in the way that a talented engineer can look at a broken computer and know exactly what to do to make it work, or in the way that Michelangelo can look at a slab of marble and in it see the magnificent Statue of David, Uncle Dicky can look at a terrorist, some crooked lawyers and a poorly-written international law regarding torture and see in it an airtight, effective plan for covering the collective ass of his administration.”
The boy scratched his head. “Did… did you just compare Dick Cheney to Michelangelo?”
“In the field of heartless manipulation and ass-covery, yes, yes I did. Would you like me to keep reading?”
“I guess. I just feel sort of sick, now, and dirty. Like, everywhere.”
“So precocious. I’m gonna keep reading.”
“The end,” I said, shutting the book.
“Hold on, did it work? The waterboarding, I mean, was it worth it? What kind of information did we get out of Zubayah?” I mussed the boy’s hair and laughed heartily.
“Well someone’s about to OD on precociousness, am I right? But, no, we don’t know if it was worth it. The investigation as to whether or not we learned anything from Zubayah, as well as the usefulness of said knowledge, is ongoing. Some think the interrogation yielded some useful info that was integral in preventing several potentially dangerous terrorist attacks, but some high-ranking members of the intelligence community genuinely believe that Zubayah was certifiably insane and his involvement in al-Qaida didn’t extend beyond making bombs and organizing transportation, and therefore couldn’t possibly have any useful information to begin with.”
“What?!”
“Oh yeah. I’ll read you The One Percent Doctrine before you go to sleep tomorrow night, it’ll blow your mind.”
“Wait,” the little boy said, “wait just one goddamned fingerblasting second. THAT’S how the story ends? A ton of pages that’s nothing but a bunch of language-manipulating, bureaucratic horseshit and we still don’t even know if we learned anything? And the guy we tortured might even just be a delusional lunatic?”
I mussed the boy’s face and chuckled grandly. “Allegedly tortured,” I corrected. “Also the lunacy was alleged, too, so, really, watch your word choice.”
The boy stared off, looking at nothing in particular. Tears were developing in his eyes and his lower lip started quivering. I could tell he was choking back sobs, trying to look like a big man in front of me. I poked his nose and made an accompanying “boop” sound before unplugging his nightlight.
“Anyway, sweet dreams, Kid!”
This entry was posted on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 4:00 am and is filed under My Alleged Child, Torture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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November 21st, 2009 at 8:40 am
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October 4th, 2009 at 8:45 am
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September 16th, 2009 at 9:42 am
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August 28th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Here’s a scenario:
You get pulled off of the street by British government forces because some group said that you’re a terrorist. You get taken to some British internment camp. You’re tortured for information that you don’t have. You’re kept for years. You finally are released when these British ass-bags realize that you don’t know shit. What would you do after being released?
The first thing that I would do would be to BOMB THE FUCK out of as many British politicians as I can.
Thus I propose this theory: Guantanamo Bay creates far more terrorists than they capture/prevent. Fucking idiots.
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:34 am
Reading some of the comments to this article, I can’t help but laugh at the stupidity of some people. I’m natively Vietnamese but have lived for 3/4s of my life in Sweden. Thus, I am by all intents and purposes Swedish.
The United States invaded Vietnam and killed countless innocent civilians. My maternal grandmother had to flee across the mountains carrying my mother and her siblings and they were near starvation for large periods of my mother’s childhood. The French invaded my country and whatnot. The Chinese have a bloody history concerning Vietnam.
Guess what, I HATE NEITHER OF THESE GROUPS OF PEOPLE! My God what a bunch of idiots (some of) you are.
“Noes! 9/11! Terrorists!”. Guess what, that does not make every single Middle Eastern citizen a terrorist. At least my patria was invaded by national armies, sanctioned by their governments (or kings in the case of China). 9/11 was orchestrated by a (relatively speaking) small group of people with zero real ties to the Afghan or Iraqi people as a whole.
Many of the Guantanamo Bay interns were arrested just for fighting against the American forces in the Iraqi invasion. Do we arrest enemy soldiers and hold them indefinitely now? Since when?
AND NONE OF THIS CHANGES THE FACT THAT TORTURE IS NEVER OKAY. For every person who is tortured and who gives up some miniscule information, a good ten, at the very least, are innocent or plain just don’t know anything.
Do you think the terrorists are idiots?! They’ve eluded capture because they know what to divulge to whom. And they know to train whoever they give the most important info in the arts of not giving into torture or simply turning them into such zealots they’ll simply KILL THEMSELVES before giving up what they know!
If waterboarding and the other torture methods are SOOOOO successful, how come we do not regularly hear of how some piece of information that was revealed after the usage of torture lead to X and Y?! That’s right, BECAUSE THE TORTURE HAS IN SO FAR YIELDED ALMOST NOTHING (relatively speaking)!
June 4th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
No jmo, I think you just have a problem understanding cultural differences… Yes, they may do what to us is barbaric, but that is merely the way of the world to them. however were our countries that different 150 odd years ago? As for the “freedom fighters” part of it, this comes from personal point of view…. There are many Afghans and Iraqis who believe we are wrong for invading their country, and with good reason… If you truly believe everything you’re saying, please ask yourself if a bomb dropped on a village of innocent people ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4577578.stm ) is any different to a bomb being detonated and killing innocent people in one of our towns or cities….
June 4th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
What if Daniel O’Brien is retarded?
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:58 am
“Boop”
May 31st, 2009 at 7:18 am
You people are idiots. There does not appear to be ONE person here who is able of even a modicum of objective thinking. So many closed minded responses. Every person who responded to this needs to stop and spend 30 seconds considering what it means if you’re wrong. Temper yourselves, fools. You are all right, and you are all wrong. It is a delicate balance to negotiate the human rights of a person who has no respect for human life. For those of you who equated our enemy to “freedom fighters…” are you kidding? Do you know ANYTHING of what they do? Selling their daughters into marriage, beating a woman who defies her husband, stoning a female for touching a man who isn’t her husband? I need you to clarify which part of this suggests freedom to you. If you like it so much, maybe you should be there yourself and write home and tell us how free you feel. Keep your literacy a secret, though, if you want to keep your eyes. They don’t like that over there. If you paid attention to the news, you’d know what kind of respect they have for education.
It’s easy to have so many selfrighteous opinions when you’ve never been outside your own little utopia. What a bunch of childremn. You should be embarrassed of your ignorance.
May 27th, 2009 at 2:56 am
The only people who win as a result of this so called “torture” debacle are the terrorists themselves. Now they pretty much know that the interrogations are designed not to cause them harm so theres no need to give up any information in case of capture! The level of intelligence will most likely drop and the only people that end up suffering or dead will be you and me.
Also, somebody argued that torture doesnt work because anyone will confess to anything under torture. Thas true if youre being tortured by the Taliban but trained interrogators will have facts which they will expect the target to verify. Thats how they learn whether the target is lying or not and thus will eventually extract reasonably reliable and accurate information!
Waterboarding is not the iron maiden for goodness sake and if made illegal we will have lost an effective means of getting information about terrorist networks from out of their own ranks.
If I was a terrorist leader I would be a growing a bit more confident about devising ways to kill you. You can thank Mr Obama and his team for that.
May 26th, 2009 at 5:46 am
Anonymous, thanks for proving my point.
As someone who believes in the rights that the USA is supposed to stand for, who believes in justice and human rights, due process and democracy, I have to say: the moment you torture people claiming to protect these rights, is the momant you prove that you have no idea what they actualy are.
Do acual terrorists commit jhorrible crimes against all kinds of people, including Americans? Yes. But if the US wants to be seen- by its own citizens as well as foreign nations- as a country that actualy believes in the values it claimes to fight for, then lowering to teir levelis definitely not the way to go.
And only vets and soldiers are allowed to have an oppinion? Not only is that idiotic in and of itself, given that everyone having a right to their own opinion is one of the cornerstones of democracy, you also seem to believe that all vets and soldiers would agree that torturing people is ok.
Funny, the ones I have talked to have often spoken of being ashamed that the righjts they fought to protect are being cast aside so callously by those who are supposed to uphold them.
But I geus you can not expect an actual thoguhtfull discussion from someone who openly ADMITS THAT HE THINKS AMERICANS SHOULD BE TREATED BETTER THAN AND HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN EVERYBODY ELSE
Reading your post was a frightening prove of the fact that so many people in the US have become so deeply entranched in propaganda. they forgot what the USA is supposed to stand for.
Here’s a hint: It’s not supposed to be a superiority complex, ignorance of all other nations interest and the willingnes to ignore the law whenever they feel it gets ion the way.
Nauseating.
May 24th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
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May 24th, 2009 at 8:29 am
The Brave Knight was an American Idiot, a tool to the Oilogarchy.
Prisoners were documented being raped (including children in front of their fathers), gang beaten until their bones broke, had their eyeslids held open and sprayed directly with mace and pepper spray, held in excrucating stress positions that would make Brave Knight scream like girl, waterboarded as often as every half hour, by pouring water directly up the nose and mouth causing intense physical pain and gagging, where NOBODY has ever been able to resist, and when the prisoners (anyone rounded up in US patrols or turned in for ransom) went on hunger strikes, were beaten, and even gunned down with 50-caliber machine guns, you bone head.
If someone charged into your country chasing some alleged mass murderer of their people (OBL is NOT charged with 9/11), then gave up the chase at Tora Bora, and just started bombing the shit out of Houston and Atlanta and shooting down innocent American men in the streets “looking for bad guys”, you’d be on the barricades with your M-16 firing back, just like the Alamo.
10,000’s of innocent Afghans have been murdered by America, and 100,000’s of innocent Iraqi’s, but there is ZERO evidence either Afghanistan or Iraq had anything whatsoever to do with 9/11. It was documented Saudi princes’ and Pakistani ISI money, and Saudi and Egyptian terrorists. Why don’t we nuke Riyadh?
Because these are Oil Crusades.
“Torture for Humvee Jesus!!”
May 19th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
First of all since waterboarding only creates the sensation of being drowned how is it effective more the once? You’d think after, I don’t know, the first hundred times, maybe, he would’ve figured out he’s not actually drowning.
Also, why should someone from a country where no one has rights be given rights from a country that he hates and would very much like to see burn. Don’t BS with the “we’re better then them” speech either because the fact is if you guys got your way the country would burn. Newsflash: not everyone in the world wants peace, some people like killing, they like the screams of innocents being killed and you sitting at your safe computer, away from any violence and the real world, crying about them the mistreatment of terrorists should go to the nearest military recruitment center, join infantry and get put on the front lines and when your getting shot at and bombs are blowing up around you and you watch innocent people being killed, you come back and tell me, does a man who helped do that, killed innocents, and killed Americans who fight to protect your freedoms and rights while you criticize them, does he really deserve any of our rights and is waterboarding him really all that bad. If someone came and shot your best friend right now, would you give him a meal or beating? Screw off you self-righteous pricks who have never expierenced anything outside of your safe little world where your biggest worry is the bills. Those of you all pissy at this guy Voltaire for his comments, none of you came up with legitimate arguements against him and its because he’s right, until we have a better method then torture, we might as well use it. Everyone else does. Finally, international law is the biggest load of bull shit ever come up with, especially the Geneva Convention, for those of you who don’t know, terrorists broke the Geneva Convention by not wearing distinct uniforms and by concealing weapons, so as a result they aren’t considered POW’s and have no rights under the Geneva Conventions. Quite being a bunch of pussies, step up and do what it takes to protect the ones you love. The only people who truly have the right to say anything against it our vets and current military operatives and not the ones who sit behind a desk doing nothing.
For jaimie: Hell no I wouldn’t be willing to accept Americans being waterboarded and tortured, but don’t think for a second I wouldn’t do the same to the bastards to protect my fellow Americans because if thats what it takes then I’m ready to do it. Call me a hypocrite or whatever you want but I’d still do it to protect you and and any other American. Fun fact though Americans are being held without of the rights you listed, and not just military operatives but also civilians and they get tortured daily, ten times worse then anything we do to our captives. “I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
May 19th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
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May 19th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
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May 16th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
To everybody who says “they deserve it for killing Americans” - As far as I know, when someone commits a murder, that person is put on trial. If he/ she is proven to be guilty, then he/she will be punished. If you want to punish people for crimes they alledgedly committed against the US, put them on trial. By locking them up without even access to a lawyer, you are making a mockery of your country’s legal system.
Ask yourself this simple question: If an American where taken prisoner by another nation, and the officals explained that they considered him a terrorist, and that they therefore would hold him indefinitely, without even bothering to prove they were right- what would you as an American citizen think? If they then conducted “interrogations” using waterboarding, what would the reaction of the American people be? Who would stand for it? Would they buy into the pseudo-legal bathering that is designed to disguese what is clearly torture as anything but?
Actually, I don’t have to ask. I know that the American governmant would consider these treatments to be torture and try the perpetrators for crimes of war. It’s what they did with the Japanese who used waterboarding on American soldiers in WWII.
So everyone who says that Americans are allowed to use these techniques to protect their own country- What you are saying is
I don’t care about anybody else but me. Breaking the law is ok if it for my best interest. I am allowed to do whatever I consider neccessary to take care of myself and those I care about. BUT YOU! Don’t you dare even think that you are allowed to do the same for your best interests. Only I, as an American, have the right to disregard the law. Because I am American, and as such, I AM ABOVE THE LAW.
Laws are not meant to be applied when it is convenient and otherwise ignored. Is it hard, granting just procedure to someone who committed a horrible crime? Yes. Will the victimes demand harder punishment? Most likely.
But that doesn’t change the fact that human rights are only as secure as we let them be. By taking them away from others, we lose every right to demand that they be granted to us.
The legal system was not designed for conveniece, to be adjusted whenever we would like.
One of the guiding principals of moral behaviour is that you should treat others the way you wish to be treated yourself. Applied to a nation, that means that every right you demand for yourself and your people, you have to give others as well. And every punishemnt you mete out against others, you have to allow the to mete out against you if the situation is reversed.
Tell me that you would be willing to accpet Americans held without access to an attorney, without proper trial, for an indefinite amount of time. Tell me that you would accept it if Americans were subjected to waterboarding.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
@ayo germany:
Congratulations for making me feel nicer towards Voltaire with your inability to point out the obvious criticisms to that user’s ideas without trotting out the tired, old arguments that only demonstrate that you’ve been hoodwinked by the corporate bureaucrats that own both parties in this country.
In much the same way that torture isn’t right to perform against an individual under any circumstance, terrorism isn’t excusable either. Your revenge scenario only further purveys the problem in which each side claims that they are responding to wrong doing of the other side.
Quoting Carlin in the fashion that you have, in that unwieldy way without context shows that you understand neither.
In the way that many Republicans are contemptible with their “tea parties,” you are covering your ears crying “bullshit” and thanking an author that agreed with your previous beliefs.
@Voltaire:
The basis of virtue is maintaining one’s ethics in the face of adversity. We cannot claim our principles if we abandon them when it is convenient.
General:
Voltaire did bring up an interesting idea though. What if unpleasant medical procedures were used as negative reinforcement protocols. “If you don’t tell us where the weapons are, we’re going to irrigate your colon…and give you a hepatitis shot!” Would the laws governing intent apply to these techniques, I wonder.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
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May 14th, 2009 at 5:28 am
@ Voltaire: Thank you for so much bullshit, you idiot. There is lot of shit in your sayings but the peak is ‘Terrorist are not PEOPLE’!??
This ‘terrorists’ (btw, who gives them the title of being terrorists? They could be freedom fighters as well? Or just people who try to take revenge because someone just invaded their lands and raped their mothers or killed their sisters and brothers?), this terrorists ARE people and they are covered under the human rights charta! In everything anybody do is a story and a reason inherent. There is no one who is just bad or just good.
The only monster is the butthead administation of Georg W. Bush. Look at the consequences! They invade and kill thousands of innocent people for what? Freedom or oil? I just can say,
BOMBING FOR FREEDOM IS LIKE FUCKING FOR VIRGINITY!
@ the author of the story above: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Good job!
May 12th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Either write an article (oh… and God is with a capital ‘G’ fucky!), or trim your messages you self-important shit-stain!
Fuck your Mother! http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=13&catid=4&sku=ENGL-CD00260
May 11th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Torture is bad. Almost everyone agrees that it would be better if we didn’t have to torture people. But sometimes its the only option. For example: if your mother had been kidnapped, and you had found a man who might, just might, have the slightest inkling about where she was and when she was going to be raped and doused in gasoline and set on fire, don’t tell me you wouldn’t torture that motherfucker. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t use any means to get even the slightest bit of information out of him. The situation with terrorists is hardly different, though it’s unlikely that the interrogator’s mother is the victim. But someone’s mother is.
Gruesome examples aside, yes, torture is bad. yes, torture’s efficacy is in doubt. But sometimes it’s all we’ve got.
Furthermore, it seems that this whole torture issue is down to a lack of imagination. Two examples: making a terrorist eat an Alka Seltzer can’t possibly be torture. But it would be incredibly uncomfortable. And it seems like extreme irritation would be better for extracting true information from the subject (no, I don’t have stats, facts, or figures to back that up. it just seems true from where i stand). Second example: massage. Some massage techniques are incredibly, excruciatingly painful. But still, they are recognized treatments, and could have been used to great effect on these terrorists. And, as a bonus, afterwards, they’d feel better.
Almost done. Promise.
International Law: international law is fake. It is all based on agreement, and is completely unenforceable thanks to the UN’s decrepitude. There is no penalty for breaking international law, and so evil people will break it at will, and thus it would be useless for the United States to obey international law while our enemies do not.
Terrorists in general: these people are evil men found fighting without colors or uniforms or a recognizable command structure or on the orders of a sovereign state. Thus, under the Geneva Convention and all other international statutes on the laws of war, they are not people. They are not, let me repeat, people. To kill one of them would be the same as killing a man who is legally dead.
One final note (yeah, you’re getting bored or already enraged): the Founding Father said nothing about torture. They are completely silent.
Conclusion:
Yes, torture sucks. I wish to god we had better methods (actually, I wish the people in power had the imagination to come up with better methods; further proof that career politicians are substituted with robots at some point). Yes, it violates the spirit of our Constitution (but not the letter) and the ideals of this our republic. But we are fighting a completely new kind of enemy here, one which only really emerged in Afghanistan in the 1980’s (and if the Russians learned any tricks, which they didn’t, they aren’t sharing.). Given the novelty of this war, new and, yes, less than ideal methods must be employed for victory.
As they say, the price of victory is high. But we will pay it, lest we fall.
May 9th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Who would’ve thought a current touchy issue could be so…….touchy.
Great stuff DOB. The dialogue between the story was my favorite. Oh and wicked introduction by the way. A lot more kids need to learn that they’re being tolerated and not accepted. Oh I guess social issues should also be addressed. But only if they’re disguised as confusing mind altering bedtime fodder.
May 6th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
the may 4th episode btw
May 6th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Hey DOB, Stephen Colbert just ripped off your article, thought you should know
May 6th, 2009 at 7:02 am
I think a lot of people are getting over worked up about this. I personally thought this was some funny shit!
May 6th, 2009 at 2:42 am
*Five-Finger Salute*
Fantastic! Great piece Mr. O’Brien.
May 5th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Hugh, if you could simply lie to stop the torture you would. Plus how do we know the person has any info at all. You increase the probability of getting false info.
May 5th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Maybe you should have peppered in the fact that we only fucked with three people.
(You leave me in a room with one of these fucknuts i’d do a lot worse.)
May 5th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Why the FUCK would we stop using “torture”!?! That is SUCH FUCKING BULLSHIT!! I know damn well that if I was captured I wouldn’t tell the enemy any secrets unless they tortured me!! And we want to TAKE THIS AWAY??? WHY!?! An American gets captured. He gets beheaded. An Al-Qaida terrorist gets captured and now WE CAN’T EVEN YELL AT HIM!!! WHAT THE FUCK!?! This is the political issue that I felt strongest about my whole life. Democrats think that they should stay Democratic just because their parents and grandparents were, but ISSUES CHANGE. It is stupid to mindlessly believe the idiotic things your party believes just because your party believes them. I agree with everything “Bybee Bradbury” said about the torture techniques, although I don’t think the part about intention is true. But, hey, that was thrown in there just to be funny anyway. My rant is over, but anyone who disagrees with me should seriously consider committing suicide. You make our planet worse. Plus we could use some more space on Earth anyway. Think of it this way, Dems: It will stop global warming if all you tards die. That’s a lot less cars on the roads!
May 5th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Morty asks: “Do you think your “freedom” is not valid for citizens of other countries?” While our founding fathers believed that those freedoms should belong to people all around the world they didn’t believe it was the job of the United States to make it happen. The idea was that the people in crappy countries could follow the lead of the US and replace their govt. with something better.
I would like to think that our government looks out for #1 and lets the rest of the world do the same for themselves. If we did that I think the need to waterboard would probaly diminish.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
@Seriously?
Did you choose to add the question mark to the end of your name so that every time somebody responded to you, they would have to start out their post with an exclamation of disdain?
Seriously? Did you?
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:08 pm
i love how everyone keeps bringing up the geneva convention when the people who were allegedly tortured are not legally protected by it in any way
May 2nd, 2009 at 9:06 am
@Anon
That’s okay, just keep on missing the point.
*Pats head*
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:03 am
the problem with you, Matty, is that you cannot see beyond the walls of the tiny box you call your life. You’re thinking: “well if people in AMERICA are safe, then thats all that matters. If someone gets a little bit hurt to protect AMERICANS, then that’s all right.” Do you think your “freedom” is not valid for citizens of other countries?
May 2nd, 2009 at 5:25 am
Why is everyone giving out about this…. these people are protecting our countrys and doing a damn good job at that, just so we can sit in a warm comfortable house and go to work everyday!!!(i.e freedom) i would like to see all you do gooders staring down the barrel of a rifle or with rounds passing inches above your head… these people are called terrorists for a reason and if the forces need to use these teqniques to protect your ass then so be it… again good job lads!!!
May 1st, 2009 at 5:23 pm
“’Did… did you just compare Dick Cheney to Michelangelo?”
“In the field of heartless manipulation and ass-covery, yes, yes I did.’”
OMG ROTFL
Thats the best joke to ever come out of Cracked.
Well maybe not, but DAMN CLOSE.
May 1st, 2009 at 2:35 pm
dannay:
So, to summarize, your argument is “yeah, you’re basically correct. But you’re wrong because I said so, even though the vast majority of what I’ve said agrees with you.”
Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Oh, and thanks for the compliment, by the way. I don’t consider myself all that precocious, but if you say so.
May 1st, 2009 at 11:10 am
this was really funny
wonderful story for kids
April 29th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
@Arias:
“Other stupid things they did? For example, Americans spend something like $50,000 on a pen that astronauts could use in zero-G, while Russians just used a pencil.
xDD”
Lol no. That’s an urban legend. Look it up on Snopes.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:37 am
too funny, keep them coming..
April 29th, 2009 at 3:16 am
One error, you can only ever think they have the information. To know they have they information you must have proof of knowledge and having proof of the existence of the information means you already have it, otherwise you have proof on nothing. Also as you punishing them as a means by by which to get information you only believe they have, you now presume guilt and require that they prove innocence, so you are judge, jury and executioner. Of course you will only believe they are innocent if they don’t confess but because you believe they are guilty you will continue to torture them until they do confess to what ever you believe they are guilty of, or they accidentally die.
April 28th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
To get an idea of what waterboarding is like, download “Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow. (Yes, this is legal) It gives a fairly accurate description of Guantanamo Bay and the various tortures they use.
By the way, torture is a war crime and waterboarding is undeniably torture. First good thing Obama did was make a plan to stop it. : )
April 28th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
This wasn’t actually FUNNY.
April 28th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
AMERICA IS BEYOND THE LAW!!!
If you don’t like it you can just move.
No wait… America could still find, and torture you if they wanted… oh dear.
Man, America’s a dick… on an international scale.
Also; it’s true that it doens’t matter if you didn’t understand, know about, or misinterperated the law. When you break it, you’re still guilty. If Obama is just going to let them get away, it will be the greatest disappointment of my life.
April 28th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Absolutely brilliant delivery!
April 28th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
To get an idea of what the torture methods are actually like, read this: http: //craphound. com/littlebrother/Cory_Doct orow_-_Little_Brother.htm (remove all the spaces)
By the way, torture is cruel, gets little or no information and violates numerous laws.
April 28th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
“…how am I supposed to get these secrets withOUT using torture?”
April 28th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Beautifully written.
April 28th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Alot of people think that cavemen and dinosaurs didn’t exist at the same time, but actually cavemen used to fuck dinosaurs out of boredom because they didn’t have a satelite sports package.
April 28th, 2009 at 5:14 am
Anti-Torture and Pro-torture? Seriously, I doubt all of you are as chivalric as you claim to be. If you don’t want to face the full wrath of your enemy then simply do not fight him, when you step onto that field to fight you best be damned ready for whatever bullets, blades, and bombs that come your way.
April 28th, 2009 at 4:11 am
The hell with this loopholed stuff.
Go out into international waters and just ‘make’ a new country, declaring your own stuff and do whatever you want…
Works better in the long run till yer invaded
April 27th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I should let this go. I really should.
But the delicious irony in some retard decrying me for calling American waterboarding as torture because “We don’t let water in the lungs” at the same time that I hear the CIA admitted there was a chance of suspects inhaling water… Well, it’s actually pretty fucking sad that in order to qualify as torture, APPARENTLY just suffocating people isn’t enough.
Keep in mind now, I’m all for killin’ dem terrorizerz. But torture doesn’t work. And no matter how many times somebody bawls about how this is all just about making somebody uncomfortable, that doesn’t make it true. No matter how many times you think you find a loop hole. Call it “Enhanced Interrogation” if you want, but the same thing happens: It doesn’t help. All you’ve done at the end of the day is violated the ideals laid forth by the Founding Fathers, and put a man in pain enough to admit to anything, who may or may not be innocent. That’s it.
April 27th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
hope they keep up the good work dont dis America for waterboarding when the talaban will cut you fucking head off with a 1 inch blade (while video tapeing it to play it on national fucking tv) or the many other countrys that still electricute you for info in a bath tub while your hanging from a pole with your feet in the water. Maybe if the UN would step up and do there job insted they get america to do it then we pay about 25 % of there fees but they say we dont do enuff WTF?
April 27th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
lots of good comments here. (i thought this was a comedic site tho?) anyway, what sucks is that this “story” is true.
American government seems to think whatever it is, if we do it, its totally okay. Torture isnt okay, ever. Not as an excuse, not as retaliation, not as a method to help protect the government. There is no “okay” to tortue ever. We have several other ways to ‘discipline’ terroists like the freaking dealth penalty. speaking of which, how can america say (and it does) that its inhumane to cause one to suffer during the death penalty, but think its ‘quite alright’ to tortue someone? We claim were doing it for a just cause, exactly like Iraqiis think theyre doing their thing for a just cause. Both are wong. Besides, aside from needlessly torturing the possibly batshit insane and lower ranking know-nothing-of-use extremists we seem to get our hands on, there are plenty of other actually productive ways to get information concerning terroists and things of importance to the government that: 1)wouldnt cause the country to lose its image in the world, 2) would be MUCH cheaper than the b.s. war we’ve drug out of this whole In-search-4-terroists thing and 3)doesnt make a joke out of everything the u.s. CLAIMS/PRETENDS to stand for.
April 27th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
“boop”!
April 27th, 2009 at 6:22 am
DOB = AWESOME. You rock man!
April 26th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Man, I really, REALLY hope there arn’t any other articles filed under “My Alleged Child” and “Torture” at the same time. Like, REALLY.
April 26th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I am so fucking glad i’m Canadian.
April 26th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Very clever. Sounds about the same as when the .gov tries to explain it!
April 26th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
I thought cracked was better than this PC partisan crap, I was wrong.
April 26th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
@ Everyone commenting here:
Yur a fag
April 26th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
this was wonderful… and depressing…. but wonderful! i love how it is intelligent and capable of getting across the point that America’s government is FUCKED without being too in your face. thank you DOB. thank you
April 26th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Fantastic, DOB. I love it when something intelligent comes out of this site.
Moremoremore!
April 26th, 2009 at 7:14 am
Unfortunately too many of our politicians from both parties have
bought this crap that this is a “political mater”. Today Diane Feinstein and that creepy Joe Liebermann were on CNN. They were
pissed off because the Obama administration has taken the matter
out of their hands.Feinstein fumed that it is “our duty to investigate this before it goes to the public”. This woman needs to retire. She is a part of the same moderate Democratic group that allowed AT&T and the other phone companies to be given immunity after they did wiretaps without legally mandated warrants! They have killed too many important issues to Americans in Congressional committee and have aquiesced when taking a firm stance was in order. I am praying that the International Red Cross and our International community will continue to lean on our government. Lawlessness can only happen when we are allowed to do it. If a country founded on the principal of not allowing torture goes against it’s most fundamental moral/legal stance for human rights established by our first President, General George Washington, government of the people for the people by the people has perished forever. We must punish this heinous crime. It’s not a topic of debate, it’s a matter of law. PERIOD. We hired an Attorney General he must be allowed to do his job.God Bless Eric Holder, go forward.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:44 am
Under UK law not undewrstanding a law doesn’t allow you to be absolved of responsibility and so even if you did mis interpret the law you are still guilty.
Dick Cheeny broke US law. All of them broke international law, deliberately.
Deciding that you can call someone a enemy combatent as a loophole so you don’t need to give them the rights of POW’s or civillians is a crime against humanity.
Hence Cheeny, Rumsfled and Bush should all be up in the hague for war crimes.
April 25th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Reasons defender: “spending 500 billion bucks on killing iraqis was pretty stupid”
Other stupid things they did? For example, Americans spend something like $50,000 on a pen that astronauts could use in zero-G, while Russians just used a pencil.
xDD
Dan=Awesome, by the way. You screwed my system up, I dont know whether to laugh or cry right now.
April 25th, 2009 at 10:45 am
it was awesome, but if you really call your son “KID” and say “he cant be mine” than you’ll have a problem when he grows up, because he will feel neglected.
but you’re obviously joking so i wont bother you
April 25th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Dan,
Brilliantly written, Bravo!
April 25th, 2009 at 9:09 am
the sad fact is half a million iraqi children already died thanks to sanctions imposed by america and the UK, madeline albright the former US secretary of state justified it on the show 60 minutes by saying the price was worth i because iraq had wmd’s,
so you punished iraq with more than 10 years of sanctions and an invasion only to find out that you killed them for nothing
April 25th, 2009 at 9:05 am
to superdoctorchaos
the interesting thing is the amount of money spent on the iraq war could have been invested in greent technology in the US which would have created lots of jobs and made america stronger
Green technology could have become america’s new silicon valley
spending 500 billion bucks on killing iraqis was pretty stupid
oh and iraqs invasion of kuwait was justified, kuwait waged economic war on iraq just as the mexican govts banning of slavery prompted american takeover of texas
April 25th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Hey…. wait??? This is the first time I’ve heard Dr. Chaos actually stand for something and sound smart… HMMM… how odd…. sorry… you just can’t read a Dan O’Brien article… without reading Dr. Chaos’ responses. Oh great article….
April 25th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Hahaha… that was good stuff as usual O’Brien Loved the story… keep up the great work
April 25th, 2009 at 7:48 am
[...] Cracked has a hilarious explanation of the torture memos in a way even kids can understand. [...]
April 25th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Who fucking cares? Torture the shit out of ‘em. They’re cutting off the heads of American citizens with pocket knives- and we can’t pour a little water on their heads? What a bunch of liberal pussies!
April 25th, 2009 at 7:20 am
ps…i thought it was hilarious. very funny and great job with the images!
April 25th, 2009 at 7:18 am
i Agree with gitmo and what the bush admin. did to protect the US. Under clinton there were like 6-7 terrorist attacks and each one was getting progressively worse. that idiot did nothing. 9/11 came around and the terrorists thought they could get away with that too and challenge the new admin. bush had balls though unlike clinton and went after them…since bush was president not one terrorist attack since 9/11. also the only country in the world that follows the GC and laws is the US. we are also the country with the the strictest labor laws, osha, and the list goes on. no one in the world is held to our standard no one. and pow’s and terrorists are treated better with us in our prisons then anywhere in the world and have more rights than they would anywhere else. do you think they treat us fairly when caught? anyone remember people getting heads cut off? we have the highest standard…but they arent required to follow one? wtf…oh and the “torture” was not on everyone. a select few that were high up, and it was progressive. they started with the least and went tougher, only to reach the minimal effective level.
April 25th, 2009 at 7:07 am
As someone said before me, the subject is a little bit heavy for a comedy website and is funny if you agree with the author’s view but I don’t think you can find it funny if you disagree of if it will make you change your mind about the subject. At least it can show you how to see things in a different way… but then again that’s not the role of a comedy website.
Kudos to DOB, with this you just confirmed that you are Cracked’s MVW (Most Valuable Writer) once again. None of your posts are a waste.
April 25th, 2009 at 6:03 am
That was waaaay too long, but I agree with your views.
April 25th, 2009 at 5:56 am
@Anon.
Okay, foremost, the GC is not only applicable to POW but civilians, also. Semantics, definitions, etc. in the Third and Fourth GCs is where the crux of the argument really is.
First off, an enemy combatant is not necessarily only uniformed. “Unlawful” combatants or POWs who are not “uniformed” should be protected by Article 4 of the Third GC, and also by the Fourth GC; these combatants are subject to be treated “humanely”. Regardless, ALL detainees in enemy hands, ideally, shouldn’t have an intermediary status; and they should be charged and tried accordingly.
Non-enemy combatants should be tried in the domestic court of the detained — so in this case the U.S., at a Federal level. But, this means that the evidence required to fulfil habeas corpus will be more difficult to obtain in order to charge and trial these detainees. (This has a lot to do with logistics; particularly, how they will collect the evidence, considering the circumstance, and that retrospective evidence is often not strong enough.) But, even before that, they need enough evidence just to detain them; and, as has been discussed, much of this evidence has been considered “classified”, not made available, and automatically assumed to be valid and reliable.
On the other hand, if they are considered lawful combatants, less evidence will be needed to fulfil the writ of habeas corpus in order to charge them, and they can be tried by a military commission. However, recognising them as such gives them POW status, which, again, grants them the protection of the GC, and the alleged mistreatment at Gitmo (or anywhere else) would be unlawful.
The Bush Administration created a whole new legal framework to circumvent the jurisdiction of the GC. The “lawful” or “non-lawful” combatant argument holds little weight; and the argument, here, is not about signatories (or who has ratified it, etc., even though this is what is purported, and even though in 2003 the U.S. claimed to be treating captured members of Al-Qaeda and Taliban as POWs, and Hamdan v Rumsfeld declared the GC would be applicable to Gitmo, but whatevs) but, rather, the definition of a “protected person”.
What the Bush Admin. did (and what is being hotly debated, because this is the legal loophole of the GC they exploited) was manipulate Article 5 of the Fourth GC. This is what they eventually used to justify their interrogation tactics, and the activities at Gitmo, and what happened at Abu Ghraib. The U.S. has found itself in a legal quagmire; and arguments of “but the GC is only applicable to two signatory States who have ratified it, duh,” is simplistic, and completely misses the point of why the GC is being used as a touchstone in this issue.
But good on you, anyway, for trying. You’re so precocious.
April 25th, 2009 at 5:42 am
@acd: It has improved our understanding. Yes, we now understand what kind of people it takes to commit these acts. Apparently both sides are fluent in torture now.
April 25th, 2009 at 4:32 am
Actually, even the Obama administration is conceding that importnantinformation was gained through waterboarding and torture has deeply improved our understanding of al Qaeda.
April 25th, 2009 at 3:56 am
Well I have nothing intelligent to say about the debate, so I’ll just question the knight’s gender. That’s a pretty, pretty dude, and not in a good way. Unless you’re his prison roommate.
This article seemed pretty heavy for a comedy website. Trying to make it into a single comedy article, as opposed to mentioning it and straight-out making fun of it, just shows that more.
April 25th, 2009 at 3:20 am
Wow. A lot of good comments.
Lets just say that the attacks on 9/11 got our attention. Now everyone here is talking about war and terrorism. Look at what has happened to what used t be the ‘greatest nation on earth’ we are now worried about …
Okay I just spilled bear on my mouse pad and it was all a joke. Any who, Look we are all Americans and we’ve let some war divide this country, the country who believes in…, into some bickering 2 party bullshit when we all know that goes no where. Lets work out some reasonable solution.
Look this country still has the economic power to recover and dominate the planet but we have chosen ton splinter ourselves. Nobody wh knows anything votes on issue that count. For example most people think that….
And No i’m not going to say something and get in a debate. I study nuclear physics (that doesn’t mean anything, but in the same respect neither does environmental science) so I think that it is the answer to all of man kind’s problems. doesn’t mean that I’m right (or wrong for that matter) but that I’m at least not going to preach. Lets find some common ground and move forward. We don’t have to find the best method but if we all agree on it then at least we can move forward
April 25th, 2009 at 2:34 am
“Oil isn’t even really the biggest part of it, it’s just what everyone says to try and sound smart. It’s more of a personal thing for Bush, sort of him wanting to go back and finish what his daddy started. And to get rid of Saddam. There’s really not enough justification for the war, terrorism is the excuse for the ignorant, and oil is the excuse for the better educated.”
Oil is the biggest part. Operation Ajax was done because the democratically elected leader of Iran was going to nationalise BP. The next 20 years after the coup, the US/UK kept supporting the puppet regime’s leader, even when Amnesty International described the human rights abuses there as the worst in the world.
In the 100 years since oil was struck in Mesopotamia, Britain and america has been at war with or occupying Iraq for 50 of them.
To think of these conflicts as one-offs instead of parts of a continued policy is blatant denialism.
It’s not just in the middle east. In 2002 the US attempted a coup of the democratically elected leader of Venezela because he attempted to nationalise the oil company PVDSA
The first gulf war was fought for oil. Iraq attacked Kuwait, which was selling oil.
Iraq was friendly with America before that, even when Saddam gassed his own citizens (Kurds). Hell, they even brought him to power in 1968.
To biggest piece of revisionism in world politics today is to say that Iraq was invaded because of Saddam’s abuses.
Even the dishonest reasons stated by US did not include that. If the US really cared about such abuses they wouldn’t be allies with Saudi Arabia.
April 25th, 2009 at 2:32 am
http://www.cracked.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/page3.jpg
It’s “without using torture”, not “with using torture”.
April 25th, 2009 at 2:06 am
you speak the truth but the article is kinda lengthy if you ask me.
April 25th, 2009 at 12:37 am
“Torture violates the Geneva convention and is wrong in all aspects, no matter who’s doing it.
/thread”
Well it’s a good thing that the Geneva Conventions only apply to uniformed combatants of a standing army, that has actually signed the Geneva Conventions then, isn’t it? Because it means that we haven’t actually violated them, which is nice. It also means that anyone who claims that we have violated them is an idiot, doesn’t know a goddamned thing they’re talking about, and should shut the hell up, please, in the name of all that is good before we all end up as retarded as them from having to listen to their shrill, pathetic voices going on and on about things they have not the slightest understanding of.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
AAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
April 24th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
Well, this shows how Bush got away with everything.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
@Marco
YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!
It’s TL;DR.
l2semicolon
April 24th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
TL:DR
April 24th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
It was satire, all right. I just don’t think I cracked a smile while reading the whole thing. You can do better, DOB.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Torture violates the Geneva convention and is wrong in all aspects, no matter who’s doing it.
/thread
April 24th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
I understand and respect both sides of this debate, truly. I think this is indeed a real life moral dilemma.
Is it wrong to torture captured terrorists for information that could prevent future attacks?
Is it wrong to stop short of harsher tactics, and allow the possibility of future attacks?
One is potentially tragic to the captured, the other tragic to innocent victims.
It doesn’t seem there IS a clear answer on this one. I do respect WHY it was done, however, for what that’s worth.
That’s the best input I can offer…
April 24th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Perfect.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Hey, I’ve got a great idea for a follow up: a fable with pictures of victims of the attack at September 11! The stark contrast of murdered innocents and humorous jibes will make for comedy gold. Make sure that plenty of other evil Republicant’s (lol) are photoshoped ad nauseum.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
@CavalierX
People being detained without charge is only a direct violation of habeus corpus… so who cares about that, right? They were not given fair hearings because their standards for those hearings were not in accordance with international law; the reasoning being that “they’re not ordinary POWs”.
The Government relied on classified evidence, and this evidence was always assumed to be reliable and valid, and was withheld from the detainee. (In other words, the detainees often didn’t even know what they were defending themselves against.) The legality of these hearings were very loose. Evidence was also usually only retrospective.
As Yarp said: “When it comes to deliberately interpreting a law in a way that circumvents law, without the knowledge of the people, with full knowledge that we condemn other nations for doing the EXACT SAME THINGS, there’s a problem.”
After Abu Ghraib, the Americans lost their credibility. You don’t find it somewhat scary that your government feel that it is within their power, at any time, to change the rules of the game, without you knowing? How can the U.S. be the beacon of liberty, freedom and democracy it likes to promote itself as, when you engage in the same evils that you claim to be fighting against? America should not — and is not — above the standards of international law; and the law is not there for them to manipulate.
Further, instances of torture at Gitmo have been deemed classified, and the government can choose what information it wishes to disclose should an inquiry take place. In fact the government have withheld information on this basis in the past, thereby preventing a thorough and independent investigation into torture allegations. There are many facts that will not come to light, and you, as a citizen, are forced to accept things simply as things are; unless, of course, Obama decides to undertake a formal, independent investigation with all information to be made available.
You don’t even want to know what still happens at 5, 6, and Echo at Gitmo. Force feedings and IRF attacks are just some of the things that DOB didn’t mention. And the more you subject these detainees to torture, the more you’ve given them a reason to believe that they’re the martyrs they think they are.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
That was so awesome. I love Uncle Dicky’s ‘evil’ font. Hooray for loopholes. Without them it wouldn’t so very easy to be corrupt.
Also, this is one hell of a debate. Going almost nowhere.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I, personally, loved this with a passion.
Ignore the doubters, they know naught of which they speak.
D.O.B.! D.O.B.!
April 24th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Nic Cage is torture
April 24th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Wow, people on this site have no sense of humor.
Awesome satirical article debating the points of torture. Too bad half of your fan base is retarded.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
When did cracked become a fucking political site?
I do this all day at college, I come here for a damned BREAK.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Alright, alright. So those of you arguing for the use of torture methods have a valid point; the countries we’re “fighting” have no such restrictions. They’ll fuck our boys up but good if they’re caught. Hell, they’ll even waterboard ‘em.
But see, that’s the thing. It’s still “they.”
Do the ends justify the means? When a good man does bad things to show a bad man bad things are wrong, where does he no longer become a good man? Where do we draw the line between what is justified and what is RIGHT?
Yes, they have done terrible things. But we have international agreements to uphold, the very international agreements they cite as examples that we Americans are not the angels we pretend to be.
We aren’t, no. But why make it so easy? We practically shove rallying points at them, make the recruitment of individuals disgusted, appalled, or downright enraged by the actions of our nation easier than running a finger down a phonebook page.
The use of torture is never right, be it their device or ours. So, in the classic playground tactic, let’s be the “bigger man.”
We’re behaving enough like toddlers on a tantrum to make it absolutely applicable.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
NorthernCanuck:
You’re right! All of history’s greatest satirists have been raging conservatives! That’s why “An American Carol” was such a blockbuster hit!
Idiot.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
George Bush, Dick, and all their lawyers can suck my cock
April 24th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Come on DOB… Don´t waste your time talking about things that nobody here actually understand. And whats the point? Can we change something about this? No. Are you for torture, or against it… well, who cares! I doesn´t change anything. The great majority of the readers didn´t get it… so whats the fucking point?
April 24th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
@DOB
Yes, I believe that we can agree that you intended no bias because as you said, you are conflicted on the issue.
Also, I think this might be one of the outliers you were talking about…I’m looking at you Max.
“Anybody who objects to torturing terror suspects is living in an ignorant ivory tower world that can only exist because people die every day to defend it. Its an insult to every soldier on the front line.”
April 24th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
“No one cares about islamic terrorists and their buddies being hurt or ’stressed out’ in Gitmo.”
If their buddies AREN’T terrorists, then yeah, I kinda do. A Muslim trying to catch a plane /=/ terrorist.
When it comes to deliberately interpreting a law in a way that circumvents law, without the knowledge of the people, with full knowledge that we condemn other nations for doing the EXACT SAME THINGS, there’s a problem.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Sry I Didn’t intend to say there was an anti-torture bias in the article. I was responding to the comments.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
@Seriously?
Maybe you’re right, honestly. Maybe I do have a bias, and it’s so strong, that it sneaks into the writing and I don’t even notice it. To me it’s natural, but to the observer it might be a bias that just escaped my attention. I think we can agree that I intended no bias, but there is a strong possibility that there is bias within this article. Hell, if people interpreted this as bias, then they must be right.
Still, one of the goals of this article was to foster some kind of discussion in the comments, and I think it did that. There are a few outliers that want to muddle things up by resorting to heartstring-abusing straw man arguments, but by and large, I feel like these comments produced a few good points. If anything, the fact that there are two defined sides, both passionate, both with well thought out concerns and valid points, should tell us that this isn’t such a clear cut, black-and-white issue. And that’s a good enough conclusion for me.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
@ Naught405
‘Q: Who are the dumbest ppl in the world?
A: Poor republicans.’
That’s ignorant and representative of the attitude on both sides of the fence that has contributed to the massive political rift that is crippling politics in this country.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Great article! I’m still really conflicted, and I like how you didn’t go completely bat-shit anti or pro torture. Always a fan, man.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Hey let’s just call this what it is. People hate Bush, so they want to do whatever they can to get back at him. No one cares about islamic terrorists and their buddies being hurt or “stressed out” in Gitmo. When we’re attacked again in the next couple of years, people will STILL blame Bush. So while I think Bush was a sub-standard president, you rabid Bush haters are still total fucking morons.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
And for the record the Obama administration isn’t exactly ‘condemning’ this whole torture thing and High ranking officials in his administration have defended its use as necessary.
You know what it means when a President doesn’t condemn something. It means he supports it and probably uses it in secret (like every world leader in history) and simply sees it as too inflammatory to support openly
April 24th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
While we’re at it let’s arrest the Clinton, Bush I, Regan, Carter, Ford, and anybody left alive in previous administrations for torturing captured soviet and russian spies who were only trying to annihilate our way of life (oh wait isn’t that what the terrorists were trying to do).
Its absolutely absurd that any nation in the history of mankind would object to ‘torturing’ (trust me this isn’t even close to torture compared to what actual countries trying to defend themselves do and what they do to our 18 year old boys when they capture) people who’s life ambition is to kill every single westerner in the most horrific way possible.
Anybody who objects to torturing terror suspects is living in an ignorant ivory tower world that can only exist because people die every day to defend it. Its an insult to every soldier on the front line.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
hahahha that was hilarious.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
@sethKLOK
No one here has really insulted the Bush administration directly, from what I’ve read of the comments… And although you may think the Bush administration is “old stuff,” we have to deal with the consequences of certain actions every day. The recession we are in wasn’t originally caused by Barack Obama, and the Guantanamo Bay issue deals with Dick Cheney… So no matter what you may think, there is still a scar left that may heal with time, I am sure it will, but the problems are still there.
@Joe
I can see where you are coming from, Joe, but you have to kind of look at it from the other side. They torture hostage Americans, and you probably think that is wrong, but most Americans don’t care for the well-being of terrorists, so why should they care about ours? Know what I’m saying? Sure, they may have started the problem and were especially harsh in their treatment of Americans, but we kind of retaliated in a not-so-nice way, and it has become a vicious cycle, where both sides can use the same excuses and will continue to until the problem is solved. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have started being tough on what was going on, but you can’t really say now that we should use these “interrogation tactics” just because they don’t give a damn about you. If that makes sense. It’s a tough situation, and like DOB has said, it’s tough to take a stance, because if you really think it through it seems like there’s no good way to address the problem.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Funny shit dob
Q: Who are the dumbest ppl in the world?
A: Poor republicans.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
I liked it.
I can see how it would divide up the audience, but on the whole I found it funny and informative.
Can’t ask for much more than that!
April 24th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Lefties trying to spout serious politics; now that’s funny.
Lefties trying to do political satire; not so funny.
Tool.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
wow, people still talk about the Bush administration?
that’s old stuff, time to move on. It’s just not as funny when those insulted hold no power.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Looking through the comments I have to say that this debate is not really going anywhere….perhaps because it is a “comments section” debate and therefore really meaningless…
I just want to say real quick that torture is never the preferred method of information gathering, and many military personnel have stated on record that data gained from torture is not good data.
However, there are also other officials and high ranking officers who argue that it does produce results and has prevented attacks, such as one targeting L.A.
I’m really split on the issue, but will always sway towards the side that protects innocent American’s and European’s, and I think that’s the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques.
I respect what those who oppose waterboarding are saying, but I just do not see the practicality in even possibly making us more unsafe just to protect the well-being of someone who would never return the favor
April 24th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Marshman….shut the fuck up.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Um…we did attack Afghanistan tincho….
April 24th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
stick with the funny. this blows.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
@tincho
Oil isn’t even really the biggest part of it, it’s just what everyone says to try and sound smart. It’s more of a personal thing for Bush, sort of him wanting to go back and finish what his daddy started. And to get rid of Saddam. There’s really not enough justification for the war, terrorism is the excuse for the ignorant, and oil is the excuse for the better educated. However, we can’t really tell for sure what goes on in our former president’s head, so no one will ever really know the truth. Unless he writes a book someday and explains everything. Who knows.
@Seriously?
He DID say that the reason for torture was that the Knight was looking out for the future of his country, and he also included the way that the torture methods were justified. I think you are only reading what you want to read here.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
@tincho,
you are obviously a highly intelligent individual, as a post such as yours I have never before seen.
And @DOB, regardless of the subject, I still found this to be a let down when compared “Taxes Chainsaw Massacre”. I’m pretty sure that was the funniest thing I’ve ever read.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
why did the US attacked iraq and not afhanistan?
only god knows (it’s oil, the answer it’s oil, and not revenge on 9/11)
April 24th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
First off, I want to say that I did enjoy the article. It was entertaining, informative and you are obviously well-read on the subject.
However,
“I’m here telling you that I don’t have a bias because I’m genuinely conflicted.”
This is all well and good, but I’m not arguing over what you believe or think, I am arguing over the article. If the article made the argument for the pro-torture side then yes, it would be unbiased. If one of the characters in the story was a general who gave a logical argument why we should torture then yes, it would be unbiased. But, it doesn’t.
I do understand that this isn’t the point of the article, and it is as you say about “the shady manipulation of language for an agenda.” It is one of the very things that makes torture so horrible, as I said in another post, there is no accountability. I know that you don’t want to alienate your fan base, but this article clearly isn’t an evenhanded take on torture.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
You tell him Dan. Also, good article. I like the inclusion of your son. Will we see him again?
April 24th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
lolz
April 24th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
@Seriously?
OK, but I don’t really see why you are complaining that the article seems biased to you. It seems to be more of a satirical, bitter way of DOB telling us his observations of the system and its weirdness.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
@Seriously?
“The article is clearly anti-torture, at one point you go into ridiculous detail of the tortures and the methods used. ”
Okay, so if I went into detail on waterboarding, that means the article is anti-torture? Because the words used in this article to describe waterboarding come directly, one hundred percent, from Bybee’s memo. Is Bybee anti-torture because he described waterboarding in detail? No, he’s just thorough and he’s stating the facts. I was stating the facts and providing some context on the torture methods.
Also, the idea of this is ridiculous. I’m the author. I wrote this, and I’m here telling you that I don’t have a bias because I’m genuinely conflicted, and you’re still looking for evidence? I’m the god damned source.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
@Marshman998
I don’t think you replied to the wrong person. I was the one arguing against torture. I never said I “Support it.”
April 24th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
@Seriously?
So basically what you’re saying is that you support it, but you just don’t want to have to look at it? Because like it or not, that is a fairly accurate summary of the stuff that really goes on. Didn’t seem all that biased when you read it, and even YOU said that the methods seemed “gruesome.”
April 24th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
“I don’t care about their “feelings” or even their health, if we torture the living shit out of 100 terrorists, and save 1 innocent life because of it, whether American or otherwise, job well done.”
I’m a bit surprised at the utter disregard for human life some of the people posting here have. I know that just like the pro life/pro choice argument, we will never all agree on this, but seriously? And if for one second you think that we only have killed “terrorists” in Iraq, you’re already wrong. Iraq isn’t where the problem for us is, it’s Afghanistan. Also, even though some people may think that our soldiers are golden boys who wouldn’t harm a fly except if it was planning on crashing a plane into an American establishment, that is incorrect. We saw it in Vietnam, and it’s happening again now, despite what you see on the news. Innocent women and children living in other countries ARE being killed by our soldiers, so stop saying crap like “When you see US attacking children, blah blah blah…”
As for the guy who posted that quote up there, I am scared for anyone who gets on your bad side. Anyway, just because they are an easy target, it doesn’t make these people all evil… Some of them want us dead, and I can see from reading this page that some of us want them dead. That just comes from not understanding these people yourself, you’ve never met them yet you hate every last one of them with a passion. But not me personally, I think the whole thing is bullshit. Although we may not have intentionally caused any problem, we have prolonged the problem, and if that isn’t a crime, I don’t know what is.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
“The “little boy” at the end didn’t complain because torture was used, he just questioned its effectiveness, which is what I’m still doing now.”
The article is clearly anti-torture, at one point you go into ridiculous detail of the tortures and the methods used. That’s like posting an article about that goes into gruesome detail how they butcher animals and posting pictures and saying that you didn’t take sides.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
To all those “torture is necessary” folks:
I can tell no one will convince you otherwise by saying it isn’t right - you don’t seem to see alleged terrorists as human.(I say alleged because some have been freed with not so much as a mumbled “oops!” Look up a Canadian man called Omer Khadr, see if you’re still so sure).
Well how about this: it is stupid to torture people two months, nine months, 3 years after their capture because whatever information they might have is WORTHLESS! How would they know about some huge impending attack? They’ve been in a torture prison, and whatever they might have known when they went in there wouldn’t help the US anyway. So if the fact that torture won’t convince, maybe the fact that torture is unnecessary will.
Great bedtime story Dan. Funny and disturbing just how I like it.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
@Seriously?
What side did I take? The “little boy” at the end didn’t complain because torture was used, he just questioned its effectiveness, which is what I’m still doing now. I didn’t end the article with any definitive answers because I don’t have any. I took a stance against what I perceived to be the shady manipulation of language for an agenda, but that’s not what we’re discussing here.
Come on, man.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I’m not even bothering to read the comments, because I already know what I’ll find there. But that having been said: HILARIOUS! Great article. Article? Post? Ah, whatever. Great work, DOB.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
“So isn’t it torture?”
“Yes, but also no.”
“I agree.”
“What?!”
That was my favourite part of the story … which overall was kind of sad but also funny at times. Which I guess means you approached the idea pretty much perfectly. Well done!
April 24th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
“the people who cling to one side of the debate or the other, how can you do that when faced with all the sides?”
DOB said after writing an article clearly biased to one side.
“You precocious little scamp”
I grinned and ruffled his hair.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
It’s all ridiculous really. We’re hardly anything but animals with highly evolved brains, the entire concept of ethics is man made and subject to change wildly by location and generation, so you can never win a so called “argument” in ethics. The world would be much less complicated if we all just went back to “Sleep, Eat, Fuck, Repeat”.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Not very funny. If the goal was to alienate half your potential audience immediately, you succeeded. Stick to penis jokes.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
“The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world. . .The damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”
-Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair
And I’m not even posting that as some kind of final, discussion-ending stamp, because for as many quotes about the ineffectiveness of torture and the unreliability of the results, CavalierX can pull out just as many quotes from generals and politicians talking about how essential and effective torture is.
Isn’t that enough to show just how dicey this issue is? And how complicated it is? For everyone commenting who seems so sure about their points, the people who cling to one side of the debate or the other, how can you do that when faced with all the sides?
April 24th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
This makes me sad.
I know that it’s necessary and sometimes we do in fact get useful information out of the men being tortured, but that doesn’t make it morally right.
I don’t know what I’m trying to say, but it just depresses me that there’s so much evil in the world that it must be matched to keep ourselves safe.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
oh even better taxes pay for the bombs and bullets the US uses. so we are paying for this hahahaha it is amazing i got to admit. We create terrorists they hate us and attack us for fucking their lives up, we get pissed they did this and spend ungodly amounts of money one bombs and bullets to kill them and anything else in the way. The relatives of the anything else in the way hate us cause we fucked up there lives, become terrorists attack us we repeat said process before and the military industrial complex gets shit tons of money from the American tax payer and the terroritst! no one wins! hahahahaha
April 24th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
What happens in the sequel? Did the knight’s parents shut down the dragon prison and move him into the basement of their own castle?
April 24th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
DOB this was awesome. But you must have a masochistic comment fetish to want to post this. The debate makes my eyes water.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
“I don’t recall us driving planes into their buildings, or killing any of their innocents.”
What do you call the thousands of civilians murdered by American troops?
I dub thee failed.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
hahahaha it comes naturally thanks, why do you hate terrorist cause they made an attack on American soil killed innocent people right
well, i am not a rocket scientist but i am pretty sure that is the exact reason terrorist hated us in the first place cause we bombed the shit out of Afghanistan in the 70s. So yes we manufacture terrorist, we manufacture them now by the deaths of innocent people. over 20,000 innocent people have been killed or seriously injured so far they all have families who do you think they blame? US hahaha we create our own enemies so we can fight them for years to come and have to spend huge amounts of money in the name of peace and by that i mean bullets and bombs and the great thing, alot of the ammo the terrorists use they get from the US hahahahahaha so yes we are creating them and yes we give them the means to fight us and it is fucking awesome
April 24th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Awesome story. I liked how even the Knight didn’t really believe the monster’s forked tongue.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
It was funny and quite illustrative.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
After reading through all the comments I think this is the most depressed I have ever been about humanity.
“The terrorists do not use reason like you or I. They do not hold human lives in any regard. Death to America, do you know what that means? It doesn’t mean that they are going to fight a war with us in order to gain some diplomatic goal. It means that they want you, your family, your friends, and just about anyone that you’ve ever known to be dead.”
Are you insane? Terrorism is defined as attacks on civilians to achieve a political goal. They don’t really give a fuck about you and your best friend and mom and apple pie. America has a long-standing policy of imperialism in the middle east (and elsewhere). You are amazingly naive about your own past. I once heard an American commentator say maybe the middle east just isn’t ready for democracy. Here’s a link for you. Read it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_ajax
———–
“When people start committing these kinds of atrocities they are acting in a way that, in my opinion, has them lose every single right they have as a human being”
Except when they’re innocent
Former Guantánamo detainee Mehdi Ghezali was freed without charge on July 9, 2004, after two and one-half years internment. Ghezali has claimed that he was the victim of repeated torture.
————-
CavalierX, you’re saying that this waterboarding yields useful results from people who are willing to matyr themselves for the cause, but it’s not torture.
So these guys are co-operate despite the fact that they very much don’t want to, just so they can avoid discomfort? How does that work in your head exactly?
Sticking with you for a sec, you said “every one of them has had a fair hearing”, but wasn’t the hearing a military hearing? As in, guilty until proven innocent? Do you consider that a fair hearing?
One more. You said, talking about the conditions in Gitmo
“I relax with my US-issued Qu’ran and eat my huge US-provided meal in my comfortable cell. Then I spit on my guards, bite them and throw my excrement at them, just for laughs. That’s what REALLY happens at Gitmo.”
How do you know what happends in Gitmo? Do you work there or were you a prisoner? It certainly doesn’t sound like any of the reports that have come out of there.
——————-
“I almost drown at a waterpark when I was 10. It didn’t emotionally scar me and I’ve actually been able to get into the shower, and a pool without shitting my pants”
Congrats. Your experience is just like what happens in Gitmo. For sure.
—————-
“Suppose a country-flattening missile was heading to America, and one guy in our custody had the codes to disarm it, but he won’t give them up if you just ask nice. So what do you do? I don’t know.”
Oh come on. You do whatever you have to.
—————
“I’d really hate to see one of you go in and find out you have cancer and the doctor’s treatment is to talk to your tumor and tell it to leave you alone.”
My god, you really don’t feel any shame in writing something so profoundly stupid?
———————
“I’m sure you think that murders and rapists shouldn’t see the business end of an electric chair either. God forbid we hurt their fragile little minds.”
You’re calling the electric chair hurting their fragile little minds? Really?
——————–
“I am going to make a prophecy, one which I know will be true (especially all the Bush haters out there) “10 years from now people will look back with fondness at the Bush years, because Obama is going to mess things up so bad we may never be the same.””
I’m going to predict you’re not very smart.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
well done
April 24th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Whats the difference between a woman on her period and a terrorist??
You can negotiate with a terrorist.
Sorry just thought I would lighten the mood some. And no I don’t condone waterboarding women on their periods. On second thought it might shut them up some….
April 24th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I’m really curious…can i bring someone at Gitmo and torture him and than kill him? Am i accountable? Or is it ok only if i’m a country or something? I don’t mean IN Gitmo…around it.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
-Than
“Only once that person has been proven to be a soldier or terrorist can we exact any kind of punishment.”
You really are doing yourself an injustice. I think you understand my point better than I do. At Gitmo, we don’t have to prove ANYTHING. They don’t have to be proven to have killed, planned to kill, or even know anything. We are judge, jury, and executioner and nobody has to answer to anyone.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
“The extremist muslims want to kill everyone in America, that’s their goal. Our goal is to kill every Al-Quaida member. So our goals are the same, only directed to the other side.”
Really? If we stop killing or capturing terrorists, what will the rest of them do? If the terrorists stop murdering innocents, what will we do? It takes one seriously messed-up mind to conclude that we and the terrorists are the same, that our goals are equivalent. I guess the real sickos come out to play just when I’m headed out. Oh, well.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
DOB has a son?
April 24th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
“WoW it is amazing it is like the ultimate villian, it will never go away because we are manufacturing them.”
Does that much stupid come naturally, or do you practice?
April 24th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
“the important things here is saving innocent lives.”
-Thank you for proving my point, what if everyone of the people we torture is innocent, (yes, unimaginably unlikely) but the point is YOU DON’T KNOW. There are no trials, no accountability.
“I still haven’t seen anyone here doing so.”
Perhaps you missed this guy
…”Personally I don’t have a problem with torture.”
or “Having said that, I don’t see waterboarding as torture, but a tool used against enemy combatants.”
“When we start beheading people with dull knives and targeting innocent children for attacks, you let me know.”
See, again, thank you for proving my point. You don’t know who is in Gitmo, there could be children who “know something.” Also, If you think that no children have been killed at the hands the U.S. you are delusional beyond repair.
Yeah, the terrorists aren’t scared shitless of our technology. That makes sense.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Have to say, Cracked, I love your site, and read all your articles.
Regardless of your position on Guantanamo, this article isn’t remotely funny. I come here to read funny. If I want politics, I’ll go to a politics site. You can get into politics (on either side, I really don’t care), just make sure it’s FUNNY!
Oh, and I love DOB, normally. I want to say that so it’s clear that I’m not some hater who just wants to whine about his torture position.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Yeah, we are the good guys. Why do some people question this? I don’t recall us driving planes into their buildings, or killing any of their innocents. And yes, you’re probably right about the WWII aspect as well, but think about, what did the Germans want in WWII? To basically conquer everyone, right? And what did we want? We wanted to put an end to the war, and bring peace, so again, we were the good guys, and if we have to torture some of the bad guys to win, so be it.
But don’t get me wrong, torturing just any old WWII German or a terrorist is not something I condone. Only once that person has been proven to be a soldier or terrorist can we exact any kind of punishment.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
“Whenever there’s a protest against waterboarding, there’s always a few idiots out there WATERBOARDING each other to show the “horrors” of it. How can it be torture if they willingly do it to themselves?”
Because people are idiots?
April 24th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
i think i finally get it. Terrorism is the ulitmate scapegoat. No matter what is happening in the country we can always point and say the boogey man is coming, uh i mean terrorists look over there at them. (meanwhile something completely fucked is happening but everybody is to busy wraping there house in duct tape and sarin wrap to care).
WoW it is amazing it is like the ultimate villian, it will never go away because we are manufacturing them. And they hate us because we manufacture them. They are not a nation so we can legaly be at war with them for ever and never draw up a declaration of war. They are almost completely powerless and have no real army to speak of but they might just might do something somewhere that would be bad. It is like they took the concept of 1984 “we were always at peace with one and at war with the other” and just cut out the peace and made it all about war. It is amazingly awesome, they have no ground troops, they have no tanks, they have no planes, they have no navy but they are going to FUCK US UP! They require tons of military spending to fight and even then that doesnt stop them.
Lyndon b johnson said “be ware of the military industrial complex they will take over this country” and it is so god damn true we have been a constant state of war funneling billions of dollars to amuntion companies and have seen FUCKING SQUAT IN RETURN except a mans being hung who had nothing to do with terrorism hahahahahahahah its all a big fucking joke
April 24th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
“Do those of you who condone torture really feel unsafe when you think of an America that doesn’t sink to the level of terrorists every time we are threatened? Rest assured, we spend more money on defense than every other country in the world combined.”
That’s one of the most asinine things I’ve ever read. We do not sink to the level of the terrorists at all. We waterboard…big difference. Whenever there’s a protest against waterboarding, there’s always a few idiots out there WATERBOARDING each other to show the “horrors” of it. How can it be torture if they willingly do it to themselves? You want to talk about the lows that the terrorists will sink to? Go do a quick Google-search on Thomas Tucker and Kristian Menchaca (I doubt many of you know who they were). Being tortured then having your genitals cut off and stuffed in your mouths before being decapitated so the terrorists can make videos of themselves parading around with your severed, genital-stuff head and stomping on it is just a TAD different than waterboarding.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Than687-
So…this is not a war? Hitler wanted to have a diplomatic advantage over the Jewish Community, right? He didn’t…oh…i dunno…kill them? Would you condone torture being used on the german army? Of course you would. Would you want them to torture the american soldiers? No. Because you could have been that american soldier who was tortured. Again, I really wish Al-Quaida and everyone involved in it dies, but i do not want them to be tortured. It is beneath us. The extremist muslims want to kill everyone in America, that’s their goal. Our goal is to kill every Al-Quaida member. So our goals are the same, only directed to the other side. If they torture americans, you scream at the top of your lungs “INJUSTICE!!!”…but when we do it to them, it’s ok, we’re the good guys…right?
April 24th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
-Than687
We aren’t the most advanced/powerful nation in the history of the world for nothing. I can see the color of someone’s eyes from space and you are telling me that we still have to drown people to find out information?
This also, bring up the point of actually making the problem worse. I hope that everyone in we torture is set to be executed or have life terms in prison or we are going to have a lot more terrorists in the future.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
“The important thing here is accountability.”
Well, no; the important things here is saving innocent lives.
“Do those of you who condone torture ”
I still haven’t seen anyone here doing so.
“sink to the level of terrorists every time we are threatened?”
When we start beheading people with dull knives and targeting innocent children for attacks, you let me know. Shit, we can’t even look twice at a twitchy, sweaty Arab guy praying to Allah before boarding his plane at an airport without being accused of a hate crime.
“Rest assured, we spend more money on defense than every other country in the world combined.”
Yeah, the terrorists are definitely scared of our humongous budget. I know *I* am.
“Should we be giving the terrorists another reason to attack us or make our intelligence agencies less Bureaucratic.”
Well, they attack us because we won’t convert or submit. You know, “Great Satan” and all that. I’m not sure any “reason to hate us” could top that. But I’m all in favor of cutting down the Washington bureaucracy, especially the overbearing residue of the Church commission.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Torture causes terror.
Does this make americans terrorists?
For the record, I am against any kind of interrogation procedure not used in regular prisons, but if they are going to be used, and judging by the comments they probably will be, then at least give the alledged terrorist a FAIR TRIAL before sending him out.
You cannot detain someone without establishing his guilt in a court of his peers, no matter how morally justified you think you are in doing so.
And as for the difference between japanese waterboarding, I think if you had a wet cloth on your head and had water poured over it, you’d probably inhale some as you struggled to breath. Perhaps it’s not being intentionally put down there, but it’s the same result.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
“It means that they want you, your family, your friends, and just about anyone that you’ve ever known to be dead.”
Actually, the Qu’ran offers us three choices: conversion, dhimmitude or death. I think they prefer #3 — they don’t call us “the Great Satan” for nothing.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
-Seriously
Yes, we do spend a lot of money on protection, money that we could save if we had better information. Not only that, but it doesn’t matter how advanced your guns and missiles are if you don’t know when and where to use them.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
The important thing here is accountability. Who is accountable for the what happens in Gitmo? No one. It is a safe haven and that is precisely why we don’t bring whoever we want to interrogate to the U.S. Whatever happens there, (hint: you don’t know what is happening there) nobody is going to jail over it. They could torture 100 innocent people and find nothing. They could screw up and kill some of them and still, no accountability.
Do those of you who condone torture really feel unsafe when you think of an America that doesn’t sink to the level of terrorists every time we are threatened? Rest assured, we spend more money on defense than every other country in the world combined. We’ll be fine. And I know you are already thinking “but… 9/11!@#!.” Well, those same people who let 9/11 happen (CIA) are the ones in charge of getting the information out of the terrorists. Should we be giving the terrorists another reason to attack us or make our intelligence agencies less Bureaucratic.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
-Masthema
They are NOT soldiers, and I’m sure in their mind they are not fighting a war, but attempting an extermination. No one who would pick up a small child and use them as cover is a soldier (this DOES happen). That person is less than a criminal. The terrorists do not use reason like you or I. They do not hold human lives in any regard. Death to America, do you know what that means? It doesn’t mean that they are going to fight a war with us in order to gain some diplomatic goal. It means that they want you, your family, your friends, and just about anyone that you’ve ever known to be dead.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Sorry I can stick around for the long winded rebuttal but I must get back to my job. Have a great weekend everyone.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Iberian, of course my analogy doesn’t make sense to someone who takes it completely literal. I was saying terrorists are the cancer, the U.S. is the body that it’s trying to destroy. Pretty simple so far as analogies go. Doctors do everything from CT scans to biopsies to figure out the best course of treatment in order to eliminate the threat. See, something has to be done and it’s not always pleasant to either the cancer or the host, but if nothing is done the cancer will eventually be fatal.
I hope you understand this better now. If not I can draw you a picture.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Corruptness aside, I say do anything you can to get information out of them. We wouldn’t be stooping to there level, not even close. They kill innocent civilians, be it man, woman, or child. In my mind they are hardly human. I don’t care about their “feelings” or even their health, if we torture the living shit out of 100 terrorists, and save 1 innocent life because of it, whether American or otherwise, job well done.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
“What IS torture is a matter of opinion, like what this article showed, it’s open to interpretation.”
No, it’s not a matter of opinion; that’s the whole point. Bush brought in a whole damn army of legal experts to figure out exactly what torture is, specifically so we DIDN’T cross that line when interrogating captured terrorists.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
“I can’t belive that a lot of comments here support torture”
I haven’t seen any, except the guy who said he’s like to torture members of the Bush adminstration.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
“Your definition highlights the difference between being shot with a pistol or a rifle.”
Close. More like the difference between being shot with a metal bullet and a rubber bullet. The latter is not specifically intended to kill you. See?
April 24th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
I can’t belive that a lot of comments here support torture…I’m not in favor of terrorism either, but are you mental? To torture another human being just because they are at WAR with you? It IS the WAR ON TERROR, right? So the terrorists America is torturing are soldiers…I hope the War on Terror dies and no terrorist will ever strike again, but i really do hope a terrorist will take one of you “oooh, let’s torture” guys and torture the life out of you. Torture is wrong. IT DOES NOT MATTER WHY YOU USE IT !!! It is wrong, period.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
“Because, you just admitted torture doesn’t work- and we’re discussing waterboarding most specifically, the most heinous of a series of heinous acts committed by the most recent administration, which is torture.”
Oh, I see the source of your confusion. Let me clear it up for you: waterboarding as practiced at Gitmo is not torture. That ought to help you. Then again… probably not.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
“Okay- their waterboarding was RISKY, and therefore the strangulation and suffocation that was IDENTICAL to our method counts as “Bad” while ours, which, if I might repeat, is the SAME THING, is “Good.””
Try actually reading what I wrote and leave those strawmen alone. One is torture, the other is not. Neither are “good.” Filling someone’s lungs with water is not the same thing as NOT filling someone’s lungs with water.
April 24th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I find that it impossible to come out with a black and white response to torture, on one hand the idea of doing much more terrible things than waterboarding to terrorists bothers me not at all as it applies to them personally, if it saves lives. On the other hand however there really hasn’t ever been evidence that torture works as far as information gathering goes, so it basically devolves into a bunch of U.S. employed sadists filling their disturbing spank banks and getting paid for it.
In the end I believe that we need to move past the national damage the Bush administration has done and to pursue charges only if it can be proven that they won’t do more damage to the country than good and to reform out system for holding detainees.
On another note I’m going into the military and have been thinking about seeing what all the fuss is about waterboarding by trying it out.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:50 am
first of you have a video of people killing themselves in itself is pretty sadistic. no wonder you dont think it is torture
The guy beating it to torture was meant to inject some humor to a very serious convo, presenting and even more absurd action in already absurd environment.
Anyways i took a class in the fundamental workings of the human mind and guess what i learned.
A. a person will do anything to and i mean anything to make something they dislike stop, including lying(basically making torture i mean “integration” useless because you will never know if he is just telling you something to make you stop)
B. the human mind is incapable of doing something unless it gains something from it. Or in simpler terms you will not right now stand up do the hokey pokey and sit down for no reason cause you gain nothing from it. Your mind will not even think of it cause there is no point. A person “”integrating” a man is an unwilling participant in this. The person doing the “integrating” is playing his role, he is doing an action that in the normal confines of society is considered sadistic and insane. He would never in his life think of doing this (unless he deprived some sick joy from it hence my joke) but he see’s this as an ends to a means so he willingly cause psychological “discomfort” to said man. Now what happens when said man is put back into the normal confines of a society
(dont bother posting i just did the hokey pokey for no reason cause you just prove my point)
SalMule-
i burried my brother just 23 days ago, he killed himself upon returning home because he could not handle what he had done in afghanistan,
“the sadstic acts of war are to much for me to handle and i would rather be dead then have to live a life knowing what i have done”(in his note)
so were do i get off, thats were i get off. If he thought killing someone to save his life was sadstic, i can say in my mind with complete impunity that the act of “intergating” another man is sadstic
April 24th, 2009 at 11:40 am
That was really long and stupid. Please don’t do that again.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:38 am
I don’t see what the big deal is anyway. All countries use torture. It’s just that some countries do a better job of covering it up.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:38 am
That was actually pretty entertaining, DOB. I have to say I liked it.
Having said that, I don’t see waterboarding as torture, but a tool used against enemy combatants. They are not soldiers fighting for a government or a nation. They do not wear uniforms. They are civilians who picked up weapons for fight against us. They are not protected by the Geneva Convention. And that is the least of their evils. I don’t care what we do to them to make them talk. Even a little bit of information we get from them can save innocent lives.
We are told we need to be better then they are? Even at the cost of lives? Even if the cost was losing? Sorry, but no. In fact, hell no! You don’t win a war by following the rules when the other side does not. Does that mean we should turn into savage animals? No, of course not. But we sure as hell can’t be so restrained.
I am going to make a prophecy, one which I know will be true (especially all the Bush haters out there) “10 years from now people will look back with fondness at the Bush years, because Obama is going to mess things up so bad we may never be the same.”
April 24th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Heh.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Can’t anybody see that things like this only give terrorists newer (and more valid) reasons to hate America?
April 24th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Joe:
Regarding the “taking random dudes off the street” thing:
Uh, yeah. We are. We totally are. Remember that one guy, the
Canadian software engineer? The Afghanis that were turned in for bounties? Abu Ghraib? Anyone? Is anyone following this?
And because I’m like a kitten trying to get through a brick wall, I’ll just yelp “Torture doesn’t work” again.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:19 am
@Joe who said “The people that are apprehended have deep or suspiciously regular connections with known terrorists or terrorist organizations.”
That may be how we justify our decisions on who we take in but that’s too general. Looking at the criteria I bet there are people out there who would have no problem with torturing Barack Obama because he once knew Bill Ayers.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:17 am
CavalierX:
man you just read what i said and them things just didnt go in
Okay. Are we arguing for the same thing? Because, you just admitted torture doesn’t work- and we’re discussing waterboarding most specifically, the most heinous of a series of heinous acts committed by the most recent administration, which is torture. And you just repeated that we don’t have working torture, and we’re trying to get information and not confessions-
Do I owe you an apology for not reading all of your posts in which you’re arguing against torture, or am I misreading what you said?
CDeesh3:
And I’m glad you’re not a doctor as you’d break all the fingers in my hand until you forced me to admit I made up the cancer, and the tumor growing in my lung was a clever ploy to sue you for malpractice when you operated.
If I go to a doctor with a problem, I expect him to find the problem. Not to hurt parts of my anatomy that are unrelated to the problem until it is found. The torture/medical profession metaphor REALLY doesn’t work. I have no problem whatsoever if the doctor removes part of my lung to remove my tumor, so long as I can still breath after wards. The less the better. Likewise, I’d like it if the terrorists died, and were not threatening my life.
However, I do not particularly like the doctor to justify the presence of the tumor to molest me, strip me naked, and set dogs on me- or my friends, or even just some random guy the doctor found in the street. First, it doesn’t help. Second, it’s fucked up.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:16 am
I think some of ya have to stop arguing on what is and isn’t considered torture. What IS torture is a matter of opinion, like what this article showed, it’s open to interpretation.Anything that goes beyond mere questioning to extract information from an individual is torture. If I knew something someone didn’t, and they held me to the ground and let loose taco farts in my face for four hours, that would be torture for me, but maybe not for someone else (they might find the odor refreshing).
All I’m saying is don’t argue about what is or isn’t torture because in reality no one knows. These discussions should be based on whether or not torture is necessary, and in that sense effective.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:15 am
From SalMule:
“So you’re basically saying DallozDoppler is that you would let thousands of Americans die as long as one terrorist’s mental health was saved?”
No, that’s not what I’m saying “basically”. What I am saying is that it’s a dangerous road that we should never have taken in the first place.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Doctorchaos, We’re (U.S. gov. Agencies and such) not just taking average United States citizens off the street and using advanced techniques on them. Hell, we don’t even take random citizens with funny names off the street to torture them. The people that are apprehended have deep or suspiciously regular connections with known terrorists or terrorist organizations.
Come on man, let’s be serious here.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:08 am
To anyone who claims that waterboarding isnt torture, let us try it out on you since it wont hurt you yeah?
The way i see it tho is if torturing 1 murder and 19 innocents saves 10 lives it’ll be worth it. those 20 people may end up with mental problems but death is death.
oh and ill do some quoting from cavilierx or what ever you call him here “A large number of those released went right back to terrorism”
imagine one day you went to the shops, when suddenly you were snatched of the street, taken to a detention centre, no one believes your innocent and they torture you. 5 years later they let you go….. wouldnt you want revenge for those 5 yrs? i sure as hell would
April 24th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Stewman, I have to agree and I love Cracked…
April 24th, 2009 at 11:08 am
“The method of water boarding used by the Japanese and other countries involves actually introducing water to the lungs, which does physical harm and runs a grave risk of death. Not the same as what’s being done in Gitmo.”
Holy SHIT. Jesus FUCK. I am at a loss for words.
Okay- their waterboarding was RISKY, and therefore the strangulation and suffocation that was IDENTICAL to our method counts as “Bad” while ours, which, if I might repeat, is the SAME THING, is “Good.”
Being strangled is NEVER not risky. If you’re at danger of passing out from oxygen deprivation, that is something hazardous to your health. I don’t really care if it’s under the stars and stripes or the rising sun, it’s BAD.
(Wow I’m retarded for looking at the comments section for an article on torture.)
April 24th, 2009 at 11:07 am
It’s a good thing the medical field doesn’t take life threatening possibilities like most of the people posting here.
I’d really hate to see one of you go in and find out you have cancer and the doctor’s treatment is to talk to your tumor and tell it to leave you alone.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:07 am
The effectiveness of the method shouldn’t be what’s being called into question. It’s about what kind of country we are. The price of a living in a free society is not ever being fully, 100% safe. I’m not saying we cannot protect ourselves, but I am questioning how different we are from the “terrorists” (a nebulous term considering how all encompassing it is) when we do not adhere to our most basic of principles. Besides, this dualistic approach of good vs. evil entirely ignores the history of the Middle East and our interaction with it.
And, CavalierX
Your definition highlights the difference between being shot with a pistol or a rifle. Either way, someone is going through the “simulation” of drowning. Both are equally deplorable.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:07 am
In response to IberianSoapOpera, may I quote Nice Guy Eddie from Reservoir Dogs:
“If you fucking beat this prick long enough, he’ll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don’t necessarily make it fucking so!”
April 24th, 2009 at 11:07 am
If you want to play the moral superiority card, then we shouldn’t ever go to war for killing people is immoral, no? So for those who are against enhanced techniques, are you also against war in general in any case?
April 24th, 2009 at 11:06 am
This article was stupid and off the wall PC. Cracked should stay away from politics.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:05 am
“Okay, can I get this out of the way? Torture doesn’t work.”
Well, of course not, That’s why we don’t do it.
“At least insofar as gaining evidence goes. Oh sure, you can torture a man until he’s a sobbing mess and will admit to anything, and then how doody, you have a confession to stick to him”
I think you’re confusing confession with information. No one cares if these guys confess to mass murder, talking at the movies or drinking milk from the carton (death penalty offenses all); it’s useful information that we need. It’s not a criminal investigation. It’s a war.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Personally I don’t have a problem with torture. If an interrogator know for a FACT that the suspect has information that could lead to either the destruction or salvation of human lives, I don’t care if they crucify him.
My biggest problem is that the government seems to look at anybody with a foreign sounding name and label him a terrorist. They had more guys in Guantanamo Bay who never went to trial then the ones who did!
So if you’re gonna torture someone people, torture the right guy. That’s all I ask . . . . Put a guy to trial, PROVE that he is a sociopath, and THEN crucify him. Don’t waste time on the clerk from seven eleven.
Then again, ignore me if you want to cause I know that I’m a sociopath in my own right, but I’m perfectly with either NO TORTURE, or TORTURE ONLY BAD PEOPLE.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:01 am
So you’re basically saying DallozDoppler is that you would let thousands of Americans die as long as one terrorist’s mental health was saved?
April 24th, 2009 at 11:00 am
“Well done CavalierX, what you posted proves nothing about which method is more effective, merely that evidence has been gained. ”
Hmm… no information was gained by using less harsh methods, but information WAS gained from the same subjects once harsh methods were used. I’d say that proves the point rather effectively.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Oh goodie. Political discussion via comments. The BEST medium for discussing scientifically developed methods for shattering the minds of people, and how that will protect freedom.
tl;dr Google Maher Arar you sick fucks.
Okay, can I get this out of the way? Torture doesn’t work. I’ll even indulge in a romance with the shift key in here, just in case you’re skimming this (futile) comment for something to quote for your own comment to prove how much of a namby pamby dirty durka hugger I am when you write your (futile) comment: TORTURE DOES NOT WORK.
At least insofar as gaining evidence goes. Oh sure, you can torture a man until he’s a sobbing mess and will admit to anything, and then how doody, you have a confession to stick to him, his friends and relatives, and his mailman about how they are all terrorists plotting against the rule of glorious Pinochet. Which, assuming we are a liberal (And I mean that outside of this insane political spectrum we’ve earned in the United States, mind you, the classic term for liberal) democracy attempting to preserve ourselves, really does not help. What you CAN NOT get is a straight answer from a tortured man. “Where’s the bomb Abu?” “I tell you nothing, pig dog!” “Well, let’s go ahead and waterboard you then” rinse and repeat until poor Abu who was picked up by an Afghan that wanted some bounty money to buy a new crop duster for his opium field, tells you that the bomb is on 123 Fake Street in Kabul because he really doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in agony. If that’s not good enough, he’ll give you three different addresses, ANYTHING to make the pain stop. In a military conflict, you don’t false information.
In World War 2, we arraigned Japanese officers on war crimes because they engaged in waterboarding. They were protecting their country, were they not? Stress positions, walling, “slapping,” confinement- yeah, sure, using these PC terms invented by Washington lawyers, it just sounds like nothing- but do me a favor. Go ahead, and spend twelve hours in a 6′x2′x2′ box. Tell a psychotic to go ahead and explore the farthest reaches of what “Slapping” means. And if you say that you’re not a terrorist, why should you be put through it, I’ll just point out that you’re innocent until you’re proven guilty. I’m sure you’ll undertake the burden just like Maher Arar, to protect thousands of lives just like those lost on 9/11.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:59 am
By Daniel O’Brien
“Suppose a country-flattening missile was heading to America, and one guy in our custody had the codes to disarm it, but he won’t give them up if you just ask nice. So what do you do? I don’t know.”
It’s true, that must be an incredibly hard situation but, like in many things in life, it’s what many acts might amount to. What I mean is that one act of torture for such a case as a nuclear bomb threat might save thousands of lives, I agree. But, if you enable that one act, what’s stopping you for using it another time or maybe for other situations? I might be going too far but, imagine if the police could use torture one day. It’s the slope that we’re down going that’s scary. We can’t let society degenerate back into some place where it’s accepted to waterboard someone. We have to draw the line somewhere.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:58 am
I want anyone who opposes waterboarding to answer this question. It’s a very easy yes or no question and there is no time limit.
If your child was abducted by a known sex offender/murderer and you had the choice to waterboard someone to find out where they were being held, would you authorize it?
April 24th, 2009 at 10:58 am
“you know what one those crimes was? Ding ding ding! Water boarding!”
The method of water boarding used by the Japanese and other countries involves actually introducing water to the lungs, which does physical harm and runs a grave risk of death. Not the same as what’s being done in Gitmo.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Joe, kind of running off of your post I still haven’t heard a legit alternative to obtaining information if simply questioning does not work. I’m not saying make them play Russian Roulette (as we’ve seen this is the cause for Christopher Walken’s insanity), but our techniques have proved worthy for valuable information when nothing else worked. And yes, I am for simulated (key word) drowning if it protects the lives of U.S. citizens. To risk the mental health of a terrorist (which who are already insane) for the lives of U.S. citizens is a no-brainer to me, but I know it’s not that simple.
capecoddan, where do you get off calling our Special Op guys protecting our lives sadistic? Would you say this to their face? How do you know they enjoy it? They’re risking their ass to make sure you and I are OK over here.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:57 am
To me the question of “Torture” should be left up to people who understand all the intricacies of the law and such.
But seriously what it comes down to is that these things (Waterboarding, Cramped quarters w/ bugs) are not things we would not want done to us. Well folks, this is why we’re not terrorists…
This does not, however, mean that it can be considered “torture” in the legal sense of the word. If you ask me, even being the DRIVER for people who are planning on killing innocent Americans automatically forfeits you the right to be “comfortable”.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:56 am
” You can’t dumb it down to “stopping horrific mass murders” without considering the costs.”
Yeah, I kind of can. Go find a tape of people jumping out of 100th-story windows on 9/11 — I have one if you want it — and tell yourself that a few uncomfortable minutes for the people who ar eplanning more of that sort of thing is too high a price to pay for stopping another attack.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Well done CavalierX, what you posted proves nothing about which method is more effective, merely that evidence has been gained. That’s like bring you a bucket of full water to me and saying you have evidence as to the best way to drain the ocean.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:53 am
At the end of WWII, we charged the Japanese with war crimes, do you know what one those crimes was? Ding ding ding! Water boarding! Thank you, hypocrites and fools alike! You’re participation in disregard for basic human rights is baffling. At one end you talk about how free America is, and then you refuse to apply those same principles to the rest of the world. What good is this?
April 24th, 2009 at 10:52 am
“my only point is this, dont say it is not torture, because it is”
No, its not. We’ve already gone over that.
“some sadistic fuck probably really enjoyed doing it to”
That’s what psychatrists call “projection.” Look it up.
“Was it needed, i dont know”
Other methods had already failed to elicit information. You think they start out with waterboarding when something like holding back dessert will do? See, you START with the assumption that the people interrogating detainees are doing so only because they really like it, as evidenced by your repeated assertion that they are “beating off” to it. But in the real world (from which I’ll send you a postcard!) the goal is information.
“still just trying to get my point across it is torture”
“You keep usin’ that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means.”
- Inigo Montoya
In other words: repeatedly mis-identifying harsh interrogation methods as torture does not make them torture.
“i mean is it the same level as pulling out ever finger nail at a slow pace, ripping teeth out their heads, or taking a razor and shaving one layer of skin after another till you reach muscle”
See, THAT’S torture. We don’t do that. We make them uncomfortable… VERY uncomfortable, but it’s still not torture.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:51 am
CDeesh3, you’re right man. We’ve all freaking forgotten what happened on 9/11. These terrorists want to kill every single one of us, and they aren’t going to stop if we start giving them lollipops and teddybears and shit.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:50 am
@CavalierX-
” ‘making terrorists cry’ and ’stopping horrific mass murders,’ ”
Now, right off the bat, how does that not strike you as an absurd representation of the issues? There is more to both sides, you cannot sum it up like that. You can’t dumb it down to “stopping horrific mass murders” without considering the costs. You can’t. How convenient that your choice seems like the obvious choice when you’re the one in charge of the phrasing. That’s some kind of modified straw man bullshit, and you’re smarter than that.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:50 am
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=216560&title=gitmos-world-death-to-america
April 24th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Back to my original point, who cares if it’s torture or not. You go to basic training for terrorists, pick up a weapon in order to do America harm with it, be ready to face the consequences. It’s as simple as that.
They better take their own lives if they don’t want to be caught.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Hmmm. Yeah, I feel really sorry for a guy like Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, who got waterboarded about 180 times. Must have been terrible!
Oh wait, holdonaminute - wasn’t he was responsible for three jumbo jets and a couple of helicopters flying into buildings and killing 3000 innocent american civilians, including the brave souls that rushed in to rescue them?
FUCK that guy!
He’s lucky all we did was put a wet facecloth on his goddamn face.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:43 am
“not only do ‘enhanced interrogration techniques’ not work better than other methods ”
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration’s top intelligence official privately told employees last week that “high value information” was obtained in interrogations that included harsh techniques approved by former President George W. Bush.
“A deeper understanding of the al-Qaida network” resulted, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said in the memo, in which he added, “I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past.” The Associated Press obtained a copy.
http://tinyurl.com/dkgy7a
Sorry, what was that you were saying? Personally, I like the way Blair lays the Obama administration’s position all out for the whole world to see. 1) Yes, harsh methods get information, but 2) no, we won’t be doing that anymore, sorry.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Fact is your average detainee in Guantanamo Bay has as much knowledge of the inner workings of al qaeda as the average US army private knows about what goes on inside the pentagon which makes these pro-torture arguments even more useless.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:40 am
And, Ohstopyelling,
The U.S. can’t very well be setting examples for the rest of the world if we’re all freaking dead. And don’t kid yourself that it’s not possible. All it takes is one nation (Iran, North Korea, Pakistan) to give someone a nuclear missile. We’re talking about causalities in the 10’s of thousands, and from 9/11 we know they CAN hit us.
It is damn noble to employ your line of thinking, but foolish as hell.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:39 am
my only point is this, dont say it is not torture, because it is, simple as that own up to it. Yes we tortured them, and some sadistic fuck probably really enjoyed doing it to
(hence my comments made earlier about wacky dickie beating it)
Was it needed, i dont know, there 1001 way to do anything and just because we picked some that is clearly psychological torture, doesn’t mean we were right, it doesn’t mean we were wrong, but it does mean we clearly tortured some people. The sooner we say YES we tortured the fuck out of them and dickie has it all on 35mm the sooner we can move on
and johnson, No shit they do way worse to us, but does that justify it. When dealing with a group of people so ass fucking backwards in their logic and so barbaric that they are basically still in the Neolithic revolution, regressing to that point in history is justified?
and my mistake i didnt mean waterboarded for an hour i meant “integrated” for hours then waterboarded then a shower, and then some light crying. still just trying to get my point across it is torture, i mean is it the same level as pulling out ever finger nail at a slow pace, ripping teeth out their heads, or taking a razor and shaving one layer of skin after another till you reach muscle, no it isnt that is physical torture. But i bet i could make you breakdown in tears scream for your mother and pray to every god in existence with just a dark room with no windows, a Kenny G song on repeat with the word “banana” repeated over and over again and a diet of food laced with acid/mushrooms/peyote in under 8 hours. No i didnt do any physical harm to you matter a fact i never touched you but i bet the psychological scars from that short experience may effect you for the rest of your life. and yes that be torture
April 24th, 2009 at 10:39 am
I have been to lectures by people who have worked in Guantanamo Bay at various levels and not only do “enhanced interrogration techniques” not work better than other methods outside of episodes of 24, but the reality is that it is far worse than a lot of people on the outside know. There are even teenagers still in those camps.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Oh yeah, I almost drown at a waterpark when I was 10. It didn’t emotionally scar me and I’ve actually been able to get into the shower, and a pool without shitting my pants.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Everyone talks like they know exactly what’s going on in Gitmo even though they have no clue. Apparently shitty news sources and internet blogs are enough to convince everyone that they know what’s going on.
The truth is the TERRORISTs are treated better then they would ever be in their own countries, where things like terrorism are punished with horrible and agonizing deaths (I’m looking at you Pakistan). Yeah, slight discomfort is horrible….you’re right.
I couldn’t find this funny, because the story is inherently unfunny. It’s never easy to make these decisions regarding human dignity and torture. Ask yourself if a terrorist killed someone you cared about along with 1000’s of others and “slight discomfort” could have stopped it…. —-Tell their families and yourself that you held true to the law, see how good you feel then.
Anyone who says they’d rather uphold some kind of moral superiority and law over 1000’s of human lives is either full of shit, or insane
April 24th, 2009 at 10:34 am
To Erin,
Maybe you should jump on this because there’s a Canadian emprisoned there.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:32 am
“CavalierX, come on, we’re all, you included, trying to have conversations here. If you reduce posts to a snarky, one-liner over and over again, the comments will fall apart. Step off the smarter-than-thou horseshit and talk. We’re all humans.”
It was an honest criticism. If these guys don’t want to be interrogated any more, all they have to do is tell us how to stop their compadres from commiting terrible acts of mass murder. That’s the goal, after all. I’m not going to suggest that people who oppose harsh interrogations WANT terrorists to do their thing — that would be “snarky” in my opinion, and probably undeserved in most cases. But damn it, if the choice is between “making terrorists cry” and “stopping horrific mass murders,” I don’t see it as a choice at all.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:31 am
We are not even coming close to what Al-Qaeda is doing, so to compare it to such is ridiculous.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:28 am
“The Bush administration manipulated the world to attack Iraq”
Wow, you really think history began on 20 Jan 2001, don’t you? Nothing to say about the ten-year “cease fire” with Iraq? Nothing to say about the Iraq Liberation Act that was signed in the 90’s? Nothing to say about 17 UN resolutions demanding Saddam come clean “or else?” Nothing to say about ten years of politicians on both sides warning us that Saddam was a terrible menace that had to be dealth with? Nothing to say about the two dozen or so explicit clauses in the Authorisation for Use of Military Force Against Iraq overwhelmingly passed by Congress? You Saddam apologists are amazing.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:25 am
johnson, I think you’re missing the point.
Yes; al-quada may torture & disfigure US soldiers, but they’re the bad guys & that’s what makes them bad.
The US is supposed to be a first-world country, is supposed to set an example, and is supposed to stand for the right things.
What al-quada does is wrong, Torture is breaking the law, and that’s wrong too… and there’s some sort of old saying your mommy might have taught you about what two wrongs don’t make…
April 24th, 2009 at 10:24 am
I don’t know maybe I’m extremely ethnocentric but I don’t care if suspected terrorists are waterboarded in order to protect American lives. That’s what it comes down to, what are you willing to do to save lives. How do you think the families of the 9/11 victims feel about waterboarding as they’re watching their loved ones, either burn to death or fall to their deaths on national television. How soon we forget.
capecoddan-
I wish I could have the compassion you show for evil people. I’m sure you think that murders and rapists shouldn’t see the business end of an electric chair either. God forbid we hurt their fragile little minds.
I’m not of this mindset, maybe I’m still angry about what happened on that day. Maybe I’m still being fueled by emotion. When dealing with a group of people so extreme they would gladly give their own lives to take one American life, you can only have the “them or us” mentality. I’d much rather see them being captured and waterboarded for what they know and saving lives than our people being murdered in a media fueled spectacle for the whole world to see. Call me an old fashioned person but I will always believe in America first.
If anyone has seen “The Untouchables” Sean Connery’s charachter had a great quote which fits our situation perfectly.
“They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.”
April 24th, 2009 at 10:23 am
FUCKING GENIUS. I CAN’T WAIT TO RIP THIS OFF.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:20 am
CavalierX, come on, we’re all, you included, trying to have conversations here. If you reduce posts to a snarky, one-liner over and over again, the comments will fall apart. Step off the smarter-than-thou horseshit and talk. We’re all humans.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:16 am
This is definitely one of the grayest issues the country has had to deal with lately. Is “enhanced interrogation” ok if it saves lives? If international law allows for interpretation does that mean it’s ok to treat people (and yes, no matter what they believe, they are people) like animals? Actually, the way people were in an uproar over the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal, it would appear that we treat them as less than animals. The Bush administration manipulated the world to attack Iraq (which they wanted all along) and manipulated international law to take interrogations as far as possible without being guilty of torture. But do those facts mean that Saddam should still be in charge of Iraq or the Gitmo detainees living comfortably and silently? I’m not sure anyone will ever be able to come up with an answer that can satisfy everyone.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Fucking. Amazing.
Also, please do start making kid’s books. That would make my . . . year.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:14 am
“I am ashamed to be an American, knowing that we made terrorists cry.”
In a sane world, that would be our national motto. America: We Make Terrorists Cry. Nice.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:13 am
“Walling itself is harmless, but you move from walling to stress positions, which hurts, and confinement, and then you move on to confinement with insects, and then you move on up to waterboarding.”
Wow. Maybe they should talk, then, and tell us what we need to know in order to stop their pals from mass-murdering innocent people.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:11 am
“capecoddan Says:
April 24th, 2009 at 9:35 am ”
In your scenario, have I been trained for years to withstand REAL torture at a terrorist training camp? If so, I laugh at your pitiful attempts to break my spirit. I do not curl into a ball and cry like a girl in my dank and musty dungeon, but relax with my US-issued Qu’ran and eat my huge US-provided meal in my comfortable cell. Then I spit on my guards, bite them and throw my excrement at them, just for laughs. That’s what REALLY happens at Gitmo. Of course, waterboarding only lasts a few seconds, not hours, and is only performed on the hard cases that shrug off everything else, so I don’t exppect you know know how our “guests” really think, either.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:08 am
How far have we fallen when we suggest that international law is somehow “America’s mean parents.” What happened to sovereignty?
April 24th, 2009 at 10:05 am
I think describing the torture here as “being pushed against the wall” and “having trouble breathing for 20 seconds” is an unfair oversimplification. Come on, you know better than that. You can’t think of these techniques individually, especially since the order is so important. Walling itself is harmless, but you move from walling to stress positions, which hurts, and confinement, and then you move on to confinement with insects, and then you move on up to waterboarding. The escalation can not be ignored, because there’s an inherent threat that the escalation won’t stop. The techniques get worse and worse, and more intense- of course that’s going to register. It matters, Rogue1stclass. Come on.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Steven Bradbury’s a prick.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:54 am
capecoddan has a point. waterboarding takes too long and has causes people to cry. Maybe we ought to just rip their eyes out instead? Oh wait, thats what al-qaida would do to a US soldier, where as our policy is to make them feel uncomfortable until they give intelligence. Man, we are such hard asses, I am ashamed to be an American, knowing that we made terrorists cry.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:35 am
oh sal you mule
haha oh adults your right, because believing that simulated drowning is not going to have long term psychological effects on some is very grown up of you.
i got a great scenario for you, you just been water boarded i dont know for an hour or so. you are sent to your cell, your dark, smelly dank cell, you are covered in water and probably hyperventilating because your lungs and mind are still recovering from he fact that you just went through a solid hour of near suffocation. Your prison guard throws you a towel and a bar of soap and say it is time to take a shower, you look forward to this, since you pissed your self in fear because you thought you were going to die. You turn on the shower you can see the steam starting to rise, you feel like you are really going to enjoy this shower it has been a long day. As you step into the stream of water your mind is flooded with the experiences of earlier and that horrifying hour you spent in near suffocation overwhelms you and you end up curled up in a ball crying for the next 10 minutes as the guard laughs. Your right it is not at all Psychological, i mean Pavlov was a fucking moron, i mean if you associate a horrible experience with water over and over again you will never develop a fear at the site of running water right? But then again what do i know i am a child
April 24th, 2009 at 9:30 am
not horrible, im getting sick of this storybook crap though
April 24th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Where is doctorchaos? I can’t have closure on a DOB article till I flame his ass like I’m sure he……Oh screw it I can wait.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Torture?
You mean like all of that horrible stuff the Tudor’s used to do as punishment for even minor crimes? Like braking legs on mechanical devices and branding with hot irons and such?
No? You mean pushing someone against a wall or making it hard to breathe for a few seconds?
Hmmm…My older sister apparently tortured me all the time as a kid. Can I turn her into the Hague for crimes against humanity?
April 24th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Erin is a communist
April 24th, 2009 at 9:16 am
I have to agree with Archie P. We need some sort of truth serum, and I vote the name should be Veritaserum. Just because I love Harry Potter.
I liked this, DOB, it was interesting. I like the comments too, but since I’m Canadian I won’t jump in on this, lest I get called a communist or something.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:15 am
That wasn’t funny…it was just sad.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:15 am
It’s interesting as an Aussie to read both the article and the responses generated. I know only what the media puts forward about Gitmo inmates being tortured, and because I’m not an American, it’s not a water-cooler topic for me. That being said, I still have my own opinions on torture, and whether or not it is-If ever-applicable. Certainly both sides have valid points, one of pro-torture’s point being that information gained as a result of potentially illegal interrogation methods, could well have saved loss of life. The Anti-torture groups could well counter that torture, regardless of the reason behind it, is wrong in any case. I guess at the end of the day, what people have to ask is how they feel about their own safety and well being, and what it’s worth to them. My country has never faced an attack like 9/11 so I suppose we’re ill-equipped to comment, but by the same token, if the Australian Defense Force had caught Japanese combatants before the Bombing of Darwin, we could well have faced these same questions ourselves. I suppose what I’m trying to get at is: Is your safety potentially worth betraying your ideals and ethics for the sustainment of your freedom, or even your life? I would never willing inflict pain in either a physical or mental way against another person, but if people I loved were on the line, I would cross that line in a heartbeat. But I would wonder if it makes me better or worse than the person I was torturing. And as far as The Geneva Conventions ruling on Torture, if a situation like this is capable of manifesting, then maybe the real question should be why is something like torture so easy to mis-interpret?
April 24th, 2009 at 9:13 am
And you lose all (if you ever had any) credibility with this gem capecoddan: “including all his homosexual experiences cause lets face it anyone who go through this much trouble to torture someone is def wacking it in the corcner as it is getting done)”
Let the adults chime in now.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:13 am
New war vs Muslim terrorists.
By SalMules’s statments, a new war means new rules, or breaking old rules.
I know, if we send all the muslims in Britain and the US to “labour camps”, then we won’t have to worry about internal terrorism ever again.
Sure, it breaches existing laws, and will be unfair to the innocents. But won’t it be worth it to probably end terrorism?
/sarcasm
April 24th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Here is the one scenario I could picture where I would ABSOLUTELY support torture, er, I mean enhanced interrogation:
the limp dick liberal democrats decide to grow some balls and start “interrogating” Bush/Cheney/et al and their supporters using “enhanced techniques” to find out if they are plotting anything or if they did anything illegal or hell, just for the sheer fun of it.
HELL yeah, I’d PAY to see that one. I’d love to see everyone who thinks waterboarding isn’t really torture prove it to me live on pay-per-view. Not once — gotta do it at least, oh, I don’t know, 50 times. That is still far below the maximum used in real life. We could test out some of the others, too — stress positions, sleep deprivations, confinement with insects, whatever …
I mean, a scientific inquiry with volunteers who are more than ready to prove that it isn’t torture ought to set the record straight. I’m not taking any a$$hole lawyers’ opinion on the subject. Any volunteers?
April 24th, 2009 at 9:11 am
i like how DOB often uses humor to try to get his thoughts on current events through. I laughed at the peice only because i read the Memo’s and they are really messed up and i couldnt agree more with what DOB said in the comments, Dickie wanted X to be down with out breaking Y so he had a group of people look at the equation x=y and they said well X really cant be Y because what we say is X is always changing so it became X= Z (z=whatever the fuck we want now sit down and shut the fuck up i got a gallon of water some twist ties and a jar off picnic ants this mother fucker is going to talk tell us everything, including all his homosexual experiences cause lets face it anyone who go through this much trouble to torture someone is def wacking it in the corcner as it is getting done)
April 24th, 2009 at 9:07 am
I think that a lot of these people that are being torture deserve it. They cooperate and help organize bombings of markets and other public places killing hundreds of innocent men, women, and children. When people start committing these kinds of atrocities they are acting in a way that, in my opinion, has them lose every single right they have as a human being. And I know that torture doesnt always yield solid information (false confessions and information) but I think many of these people admitting to bombings and other terrorist activities need to feel the pain that they have caused to countless families around the world. I say put them on the rack.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:02 am
DOB:
It can be a very slippery slope, but with that mindset you are saying tactics would never change. The fact is, that can’t be possible if we wish to be safe as a nation. Luckily for you and I, we don’t make that call simply because it appears we would never agree. Congress did agree that the tactics the CIA wished to use were not torture, and limitations were still set on what we could and could not do (therefore discarding any “open season” rule that you fear could eventually come). I know this is the biggest disagreement we’ll have because you believe Cheney manipulated the definitions to fit his agenda and I do not. That’s fine, and I won’t argue and call you names because you’ve laid out reasons you feel that way.
I think all of this is a moot argument for now considering all of the memos have yet to be released.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:57 am
“I have to question what you define as ‘torture’. I believe an accepted definition of torture is one outlined in the Geneva Convention, not the semantic acrobatics Bush et al. chose to define it as.”
That was what Bush brough in legal experts to discover, especially as the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to these people. They can’t be applied, according to the Geneva Conventions themselves. And the definition they came up wit — paraphrased, of course — was “procedures intended to cause permanent physical or mental harm, or death.” So waterboarding is not torture, but just short of that line.
“Shit went down (and continues to) at Gitmo,”
WHat does that even mean? Are you building street cred here?
And what of the detainees being held there without charge?”
What of them? They were captured on the battlefield not in uniform, fighting against our troops. Evey one of them has had a fair hearing and many were released. A large number of those released went right back to terrorism, proving that our standards for release were, if anything, too lax.
“This ain’t no ordinary prison block home skillet.”
More street slang? Honestly, I don’t get it. Is this a breakfast reference? Perhaps you are complaining that foreign nationals who violate the Geneva Coventions by fighting in unconventional ways without flag or uniform are not treated as honorable prisoners of war… and deserve a good breakfast?
April 24th, 2009 at 8:52 am
People are having a complex political discussion on a Cracked message board? Really?
Sometimes I wish the internet had never been invented. Not often…but sometimes.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Sweet article. I’m wondering if you could put a funny spin on 9/11 for us next and insinuate how it is only a glorious display of devout muslim faith. Or better yet, let’s point and laugh at the planned attack on LA, which was thwarted by the use of “torture,” and how terrorists could never pull off such a catastrophic attack. Lets make a comparison: US uses waterboarding, which only scares a prisoner and causes no lasting physical harm, while Islamic Terrorists cut your fucking head off and post it on youtube. Seriously Dan O’Brien, grow a pair and route for the US for once, maybe even stop trying to pontificate your moonbat leftwing “enemies before innocent civilians” agenda in the guise of satire. Fuck you, hippy.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:44 am
@SalMule
And you don’t think that’s a slippery slope? That kind of justification scares the shit out of me. You’re talking about changing strategy, but how far will you push that? The second you say that “We can use new, previously outlawed techniques because this war is different,” aren’t you worried about that same rationalization being used to justify techniques that are even more aggressive? If this new enemy warrants the breaking of one rule, how can you argue for any of the rules?
April 24th, 2009 at 8:36 am
The memos are very interesting, and I’m just waiting to read them in full content. I don’t like the fact that Obama’s administration has left bits and pieces out. I would like to say they did not do this purposely, but that would be extremely naive.
Torture or these enhanced techniques (I do not personally believe they are the same) are a very controversial issue and one that people believe the U.S. is above and have never participated in (also a very naive view). However, we are fighting an enemy we have never faced. Even our strategies for overseas has changed dramatically than past wars. We are not dealing with an enemy that we’ve ever faced before, so I believe that sometimes different tactics should be used in order to protect the safety of this nation.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Stupid thing is, torture doesn’t even work. I am definitely categorising waterboarding as torture here, and if it genuinely feels like drowning (which I’m told is unpleasant…) then anyone but some badass Buddhist monk master would surely confess, just to make it stop. Thus rendering the technique pointless, and dangerous - not to mention horrifying. Or they could falsely confess to protect the real culprit.
Develop a truth serum that works flawlessly and use it only of matters of extreme importance, until then rely on investigation, inflitration and evidence.
Just my opinion.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:33 am
This is great stuff, I was waiting for someone to say the obvious: The torture manuals are nothing else then a weak attempt at covering their ass, acting compassionate and making torture legal once and for all. Electricity shots in genitals, rape, many deaths, but since they don’t let the red cross in we would not know. F**k the crackers that talk about results, they were achieved with volume (or pure pr). For every success a hundred innocents have paid. Hollywood might paint this nice but history won’t.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:27 am
great job
April 24th, 2009 at 8:23 am
@spartacus jones
Dude. Where IS glendoor42? He’s late.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:20 am
…
Wow. It’s kind of - uh… philosophical up in here. There’s a lot of well-worded arguments and really well-thought out debate. Congrats, guys.
…
I like the word ‘boop’.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:17 am
I agree with CavalierX on this one. You echoed my sentiments perfectly.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:11 am
I heard that people develop a phobia of rain after a waterboarding session, which could easily last for years. That’s pretty grim.
Anyway, sweet dreams, kids!
April 24th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Er, CavalierX, as someone who works at a pretty well-respected human rights NGO, and also held a discussion with a former guard of, and detainee at, Gitmo, I think I have a better insight into what’s happened there than the everyday individual, and I have to question what you define as “torture”. I believe an accepted definition of torture is one outlined in the Geneva Convention, not the semantic acrobatics Bush et al. chose to define it as.
Shit went down (and continues to) at Gitmo, based on the investigations and research conducted by my employer’s IS, and the people who were responsible for making the orders have not been held accountable. And what of the detainees being held there without charge? Mull over this: no American citizens, who were captured overseas partaking in “terrorist” activities, are detained at Gitmo because they are protected by the Bill of Rights. This ain’t no ordinary prison block home skillet.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Oh wait, “must be biased to be against torture”. Shite. Naturally blag first, read second. I wish I could edit my post. Ignore me.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:06 am
@ doctor chaos: You can be biased against torture. You could of been beaten as a kid, you could be a sympathiser for the jihad doctrine, you could have any one of a number of reasons for choosing to be anti-torture without looking at the facts and making a rational decision. Which really is what being biased is.
I think I’m gonna have to agree with DOB, I’m not American and likely not as familiar with this as you may be, but from knowing politicians and from what I have heard it sounds more like trying to manipulate the law and the wording to get as much leeway as possible, but then shite, to expect anything else from people would be a bit dim.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:05 am
This was brilliant. I thought it was hilarious and yeah, while I was reading it it reminded me of The Daily Show or something Colbert would say.
You’re amazing, as always.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:58 am
SalMule, I see absolutely nothing wrong with that comparison, but I understand your mistake. You think that the comparison means waterboarding is as bad as genocide. It does not.
What it means is that the idea that you must be biased to be against torture is, well, insane.
Anyway, if you want poor comparisons, check out CavalierX’s “not being allowed to stay up past bedtime” to waterboarding.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:58 am
@CavalierX
I think there’s a profound difference between us in what you said. You say “Bush was working overtime to define torture so we didn’t cross the line,” and I see the same situation and say “Cheney was looking at the language and seeing an opportunity for manipulation.” It felt like they picked their methods first, and tried to make the existing language fit second.
But, you know, that’s our difference. Maybe it makes me a blind cynic, or maybe it makes you blindly optimistic or trusting.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:55 am
I know it certainly feels like there’s an anti-torture bias in this piece, but, as a human being, I’m still genuinely conflicted. I’ll certainly admit a conscious anti-Dick-Cheney bias, and I wasn’t shy about questioning the usefulness of “torture” in this particular case, but as for torture in general, as much as I hate to say it, I really don’t know. I mean, on the one hand I want to say “We shouldn’t torture anyone,” because, Christ, we’re all humans. But, of course, when you take it to the extreme, things get muddier. Suppose a country-flattening missile was heading to America, and one guy in our custody had the codes to disarm it, but he won’t give them up if you just ask nice. So what do you do? I don’t know.
Anyway everyone should read those memos.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:53 am
“What made this even better was thinking ‘CavalierX is going to do his nut’ at every sentence.”
Hehheh. Nah, I’ve had this argument about 50,000 times since 2003. It’s nothing new. Everybody who paid attention at the time knew that the Bush administration was working overtime to define torture so we didn’t cross the line, that the harshest interrogation methods were only used on high-level prisoners who had withstood everything else, and that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle were kept informed the whole time. The mystery is that anyone really thinks any of what was done was ever a secret… or was done in vain.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Meh, I want to try waterboarding, see what it is like. My current belief is that is okay as long as it is only performed for a short period of time. Locking someone up and performing it for months on end is fucked up though.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:44 am
How very simple minded of you Superdoctorchaos P.I. to compare waterboarding to genocide.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:42 am
What made this even better was thinking ‘CavalierX is going to do his nut’ at every sentence.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Wow.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:40 am
This article is pure unadulterated win.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:33 am
Glad you admitted your bias up front.
You know, that anti-torture bias. Interesting to find that out. I feel I know more about you now. Those odd little quirks that make up Daniel.
Any other weird idiosyncrasies?
Are you against genocide? What about forcing mothers to eat their young for light entertainment? What other crazy biases do you have?
April 24th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Why was this even posted? Maybe leave this buzz kill crap up to MSNBC… and those are NOT mad photoshop skills by any means.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Looks like Bush’s Dick is even more dangerous than Clinton’s.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:22 am
Thanks for putting this in terms that even a six year old could understand.
Sadly, our congress is full of five year olds who gave the Knight thumbs up in 2003.
Did the Dragon’s teenage son or daughter get ants and mosquitoes while confined?
April 24th, 2009 at 7:21 am
This would be humorous if torture had actually taken place. Of course, since those mean ol’ Bush people brought in a whole army of experts to figure out what IS and what ISN’T torture just so we didn’t step over the line by accident. references to torture at Gitmo make no sense whatsoever. Unless, of course, you’re one of those people who define torture as “not allowed to stay up past bedtime” or “not enough Brie in the cheese platter.”
April 24th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Is the knight Aasif Mandvi from the Daily Show?
April 24th, 2009 at 7:08 am
For weeks, Zubaydah refused to answer questions and remained “wholly uncooperative.” Interrogators eventually received high-level CIA permission to waterboard Zubaydah, although Kiriakou was not among those who did so. Zubaydah was placed face up on a plank with his head tilted downward. After putting a rag over it, interrogators poured water on his face in a technique that simulated drowning without actually jeopardizing his life. Within just 30 - 35 seconds, Zubaydah’s attitude changed.
“It was like flipping a switch,” Kiriakou said.
“A short time afterwards, in the next day or so,” Kiriakou informed ABC’s Ross, “he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate because his cooperation would make it easier on the other brothers who had been captured. And from that day on, he answered every question, just like I’m sitting here speaking to you.”
Kiriakou added: “The threat information that he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.”
Zubaydah’s and bin al-Shibh’s confessions led Americans to 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. After his March 2003 arrest in Pakistan, the self-described “head of the al-Qaeda Military Committee” stayed mum for months. But after just 90 seconds of waterboarding, KSM started to sing. He helped U.S. officials find or prosecute at least six major terrorists, including: Hambali, the Muslim fanatic who slaughtered 202 innocent vacationers in two Bali nightclubs, Iyman Faris, convicted of plotting to cut the Brooklyn Bridge’s cables with torches so it would tumble into the East River, and Yazid Sufaat, a 9/11 conspirator. Page 151 of The 9-11 Commission Report explains: “Sufaat would spend several months attempting to cultivate anthrax for al Qaeda in a laboratory he helped set up near the Kandahar airport.”
-Excerpted from a National Review Online article by Deroy Murdock, December 19th, 2007
April 24th, 2009 at 6:59 am
*cough* Fuck you bush, i hope you die and get anally raped forever *cough*
April 24th, 2009 at 6:40 am
Swinging in the Middle says : “…anti-torture propoganda[sic]…”? What does everyone think: Dark Ages, then somebody picks up the torch again; or do nuclear weapons means we’re taking everybody with us when we go?
April 24th, 2009 at 6:17 am
The test results are back from the lab: Uncle Dicky does count as a dick joke.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:15 am
Funny and clever, DOB. Nice illustrations too. You’re Photoshop skills are getting mad good (it was probably photoshopped by some muslim intern though).
April 24th, 2009 at 5:58 am
Does “Uncle Dicky” count as a dick joke?
April 24th, 2009 at 5:51 am
a DoB aricle without dick or penis? wow
April 24th, 2009 at 5:44 am
*Whistles* thanks for that…..pretty scary.
Of course being british this none of my concern(Joking, we so have a lot of our own crap to deal with)
How precocious!
April 24th, 2009 at 5:09 am
Got to admit - a little disappointed to get to work and read this. I look forward to your columns every friday, and I know you’ve done political stuff before, but damn.
I’m glad you admitted your own bias though, which obviously everybody has. And I’m guessing 80% of this audience is going to agree with you and maybe even get a laugh.
The problem with the waterboarding case is both parties were made fully aware of the tactics that were going to be used, and both agreed to move forward with the policy. It will be interesting to see if Obama decides to release the full memos because I have a feeling what is in the missing pages won’t make the democrats happy.
Either way, I look forward to your article next week.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:52 am
Won’t lie - not you’re funniest DOB. But I think you knew that.
You were working to enlighten the Cracked masses about the ongoing story about torture. I do appreciate the way you told it. You showed you’re own bias and admitted it freely.
John Stewart would be proud (or jealous).
I like how you ask if we got any useful information out of all of it. That’s a different approach from the usual anti-torture propoganda.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:48 am
I laughed, but I died a bit inside. This might truly be the bedtime stories we have to offer before long.
Well done, DOB. Although it saddens me to say so.
(Also, someone got to the “P”s section of their dictionary, didn’t they?)
April 24th, 2009 at 4:31 am
MY Predictions:
half of the people will condemn DOB as a “muslim” lover
some of them will call him a muslim commie
some of them will call him an arab
drchaos will come by and breath heavily trying to imagine DOB naked
glendoor42 will make crude jokes about iraqis
the other half will laugh
April 24th, 2009 at 4:19 am
first?
:3