Uh, they were enjoying themselves?

There is always a litany of excuses that can be used for just about anything…the costs were too great to take any chances…we had to be thorough, they aren’t like us, just look what they did to Daniel Perl, they will think we are weak otherwise etc. etc.

All of these excuses are profligately laced with the use of “they” and lack any clear-headed notion of determining whether “this one” or “that one” is one of “them”, if indeed someone even bought into lambasting entire cultures, civilizations, ethnicities, or nations as some imagined, homogeneous “they.”

They just seem unhinged and ready to wet themselves at the drop of a hat.

Bush enabled so much and took the lid off a Pandora’s box of unthinkable acts. His pathetic “little man” syndrome cost us more than can ever be measured by letting the fearful act out their worst fears on others.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30293458/

Either training exercises…. or just good old fun.

One thing we can be sure of is that neither one of those two suspects will ever see the inside of an American courtroom.

Sometimes sociopaths abuse animals for fun. This one executed people in Texas, and tortured people in Gitmo. And based on the smirking when talking about both, I’d say he enjoyed it. There was never any point to it.

Cheney? He’s just a power-hungry, sick f*ck.

Teaboarding….. don’t say anything yet, let it seep in your minds for awhile, add honey and lemon and that is just nice! Not torture! Waterboarding ? With just plain water for your guests???? How rude! But make it tea- and viola! Its not torture, it’s just polite!I am surprised woo didn’t think of this!Where were the tea baggers when the GOP really needed them?

Even if you were able to believe that waterboarding would work to provide usable information the first time or three, how can you possibly explain how it would still work after the first 150 times? By then, it’s got to be clear that, if they wanted to drown you, they would have by now, so you know you’ll live through it. Particularly once they’ve had to revive you a few times. Of course, by then you might be hoping they would drown you, just to get it over with. But you’ve also proven that you can make it stop by telling them any kind of whacky shit you can invent, so really it’s all about suffering long enough that they’ll believe your fiction.

I don’t believe waterboarding is effective the first time, but I really don’t get how even those people who do believe in it can imagine it would be effective the way it was used here.

At the frequency it was being used, it’s all about the sadism and punishment, it’s not about “interrogation”. I’m also guessing that, after a while, they became training exercises, where the point was to train torturers, not to actually get any intelligence whatsoever.

Pt 1: The Post WW2 Model
Pt 2: Honor Those Who Struggled Against the Darkness. Protect Those Who Will.

Excerpts:

America is not Nazi Germany. But over the last 7+ years America came much closer to looking and feeling like Nazi Germany than almost anyone would have imagined beforehand. Torture became officially–if secretly and surreptiously–part of the law of the land. Not only were war crimes authorized and committed from the highest offices in the land, and violations of constitutional rights made routine, but those who dared stand up against this darkness were vilified, persecuted, and made to suffer for doing what was right.

We have pulled ourselves back from the abyss–but only just barely and tentatively, with no assurances of what the morrow may bring, especially if economic recession should deepen and prolong over a period of several years. That is why President Obama’s pledge not to prosecute CIA agents who committed war crimes is so deeply troubling….

We are–whether we admit it or not–much more deeply wounded as a nation than any of our political elites are willing to admit. They will not face up to what has been done in our names. We must force them to do so.

The preview function is only as good as its user.

I imagine the following phone call:

CIA Interrogator: Mr. Libby? We interrogated the subject five times today, and he isn’t telling us anything useful. Well, um, yes sir, we asked him about the aluminum tubes and the mobile chemical weapons lab. He just babbles. Tell you the truth, sir, he’s not home any more, if you catch my drift. Can you tell the Vice President there’s no point … the Vice President is ordering us to interrogate him again? That’s a direct order? Well, yes sir, we can do that, but don’t expect … no, we won’t give up, sir. We’re thinking positive, sir. Thank you, sir. [click]