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AFP - Getty Images file
Sept. 11 attack mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is shown on March 1, 2003, shortly after his arrest in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He is said to have been waterboarded 183 times.
Whatever its artistic merits, the movie “Zero Dark Thirty” is giving Americans a shocking first-hand look at the “enhanced interrogation techniques” used by the CIA on suspected terrorists and rekindling that most polarizing of national security debates: Did waterboarding and other practices amount to torture and were they even effective?
The movie, which opens in wide release on Friday, is unlikely to resolve those issues, particularly given that critics – including acting CIA Director Michael Morell -- say it misrepresents the role the interrogations played in the eventual tracking and killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
But more than a decade after the harsh techniques were authorized, the movie does offer an opportunity to examine the methodical, legalistic, bureaucratic process that led to the use of waterboarding and other physically and mentally stressful interrogation techniques.
Their development illustrates what former CIA Director George Tenet wrote in his memoir, “At the Center of the Storm”: “Despite what Hollywood would have you believe, in situations like this, you don’t call in the tough guys; you call in the lawyers.”
Interviews over three years with former high-ranking U.S. officials, and a review of documents and memoirs of participants by NBC News, provide a detailed picture of the how the intelligence community and Justice Department crafted the “enhanced interrogation techniques” – known as EITs in CIA jargon -- that were used on some of America’s most wanted terrorists.
The approval process for the techniques – many of which are prohibited for use on battlefield adversaries by the Geneva Conventions – created not just a list of those that were permitted, but included detailed instructions covering everything from the dimensions of the waterboard to how long detainees were to be strapped down and their airflow restricted. Specific legal procedures also were prescribed before each technique could be administered.
The process of developing a “menu” of interrogation techniques that could be used on suspected terrorists began in the spring of 2002, and moved quickly -- even feverishly – at first.
AP file
An undated file photo provided by U.S. Central Command shows Abu Zubaydah, date and location unknown.
The CIA, which lacked interrogation expertise, needed to develop a plan for questioning alleged al-Qaida terrorist training camp operator Abu Zubaydah, the first major jihadi captured after the 9-11 attacks.
Wounded in a shootout in Pakistan at the end of March 2002, Zubaydah was initially interrogated by FBI agents. But CIA agents soon joined the questioning and the bureau withdrew its agents by June out of a concern that the agency’s interrogators had crossed the line. (That suggests that Zubaydah’s harsh treatment began even before enhanced interrogation techniques were approved in August 2012, since the 9-11 Commission’s final report included references to at least five CIA interrogations between late May and early July.)
“Interrogation wasn’t a big deal till we got a big deal guy,” said one former intelligence official who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity. “We had reporting from prior to 9-11 as well as afterward that Abu Zubaydah might well know about future operations. So … we get him in our clutches…we figure we might need to do something to find out what he knows.”
'Zero Dark Thirty' torture controversy: Filmmakers stand their ground
To come up with a “menu” of harsh interrogation tactics, the agency turned to the Pentagon’s SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) program, which trains U.S. servicemen to resist harsh treatment that might be inflicted on them by an enemy that doesn’t abide by the Geneva Conventions. In other words, torture.
Agency officials made first contact with the SERE trainers in April 2002, not long after Zubaydah was captured, according to staff investigators with the Senate Armed Services Committee. Richard Shiffrin, the Defense Department’s deputy general counsel for Intelligence, later confirmed in congressional testimony that the purpose was to “reverse engineer” the techniques that U.S. servicemen were being subjected to for use on al-Qaida detainees.
Some techniques were demonstrated to CIA officials in an initial two-day tutorial on July 1-2, 2002, with SERE instructors playing the roles of both prisoner and the interrogator. A CIA lawyer decided following the tutorial that "significantly harsh techniques” would have to be approved by the Justice Department.
In late July, Dr. John “Bruce” Jessen, then a senior psychologist at the Defense Department agency that administered SERE training, was sent to the CIA “for several days” to discuss the techniques, according to congressional investigators.
Immediately after the assignment ended, Jessen resigned from the Air Force and, along with another recently retired colleague, Dr. James Mitchell, founded Mitchell Jessen & Associates.
The business -- co-owned by seven individuals, six of whom either worked in the SERE program as employees or contractors – quickly signed a contract with the CIA, a deal that provided the two men with $1,000-a-day tax-free retainers, according to ABC News.
Susan Walsh / AP file
Former Justice Department lawyer, John Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, testifies about the legal justification for 'enhanced interrogation techniques' on Capitol Hill on June 26, 2008.
At roughly the same time, starting July 13, 2002, White House and Justice Department lawyers began drafting the memos approving the techniques. By July 22, John Yoo, then deputy assistant attorney general in the DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, had prepared his eventually famous secret memo to Alberto Gonzalez, then counsel to President George W. Bush. In it, Yoo suggested that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to terrorism cases. Furthermore, he wrote, international law “lacks domestic legal effect, and in any event can be overridden by the president.”
Meanwhile, within days of hiring Mitchell Jessen & Associates, the CIA asked the Defense Department for a rush “list of exploitation and interrogation techniques that had been effective against Americans” in the SERE training.
The Pentagon quickly replied with a memo, “Physical Pressures used in Resistance Training and Against American Prisoners and Detainees,” according to the Senate investigators.
Working with Mitchell Jessen & Associates, the CIA soon developed a menu of 20 enhanced techniques – a list that was ultimately whittled down to 10, mainly because some of proposed techniques were considered too harsh even for terrorists.
“Not everything they proposed was part of the final menu,” said a former senior intelligence official, also speaking on condition of anonymity. “They came up with some stuff people didn’t like and were not approved. … There were legal tests. … Does it shock the conscience? Does it lead to deep long-lasting injuries?”
The official said he was unaware specifically which techniques had been rejected or why. Two other Bush administration officials familiar with the approval process for enhanced interrogation techniques, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were unaware that any techniques had been rejected prior to approval of the final “menu.”
Approval of the 'menu'
By Aug. 1, 2002, only five days after the Pentagon’s memo had been delivered to the CIA, use of the 10 techniques was approved in a memo signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, now a federal appeals court judge. The approved techniques were: “attention grasp,” “walling,” “facial hold,” “facial slap (insult slap),” “cramped confinement,” “wall standing,” “stress positions,” “sleep deprivation,” “insects placed in a confinement box” and “waterboarding.”
Waterboarding, probably the most controversial of the techniques, was at the time only used by the U.S. Navy SERE school and prohibited by the Army and Air Force, according to the committee. The Navy has since abandoned waterboarding.
While the techniques were undeniably harsh, senior CIA officials were comforted by the fact that they had been used by the U.S. against its own servicemen, said the former intelligence official.
“A big factor in people’s thinking was that these techniques were used in the training of U.S. Special Operations Forces,” the ex-official said. “If it was something that had been done to U.S. forces … although admittedly very tough … then it couldn’t be considered torture.”
Indeed, Jose Rodriguez, who as director of the CIA’s clandestine service ultimately controlled the EIT program, has written in his memoir, “Hard Measures,” that “waterboarding had been used on 26,829 U.S. Air Force personnel between 1992 and 2001.” Eventually the Air Force stopped using it, he added, because “the airmen subjected to it found it impossible to resist.”
While waterboarding received most attention, “walling” also was controversial because of reports that detainees’ heads would be thrown against the wall.
Rodriguez, however says that was not the case. In his memoir, he wrote that “special ‘rooms within rooms’” were constructed with flexible plywood walls to prevent injury.
Among the proposed interrogation techniques that didn’t make the cut were “smoke,” “immersion” and “grounding,” according to Senate investigators.
In “smoke,” detainees were to have been blasted for up to five minutes with “an extraordinary amount of thick, sickening smoke” created by a mechanism that used dry tobacco as fuel. “Immersion” called for detainees to be placed in a makeshift cold water bath where “depending on wind and temperature, the subject may be either fully clothed or stripped.” In “grounding,” detainees were to be “forcefully guided…to the ground, (with the interrogator) never letting go.”
While no evidence exists to suggest that “smoke” or “grounding” were ever used against the al-Qaida detainees, the International Red Cross Committee has reported that at least three of the detainees claim they were subjected to “immersion” and their description of the technique precisely matches what was laid out in the original menu the Pentagon provided the CIA.
Rodriguez, who oversaw the use of EIT program, has offered some of the most detailed descriptions of how the techniques were applied.
Writing in “Hard Measures,” he said the 10 approved techniques were broken down into the three categories, “neutral probe,” “corrective” and “coercive.”
Under “neutral probe,” detainees were subjected to sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation and enforced nudity.
If detainees refused to cooperate, Rodriguez said the “corrective” measures were introduced. “Attention grasp,” “facial hold” and finally “insult slap” met the definition of “corrective.”
In the final stage, “coercive,” detainees were placed in a confinement box, at least once with insects (only non-deadly varieties permitted), “wall standing” – where a detainee was directed to stand four or five feet away from a wall with his arms in front of him, fingertips resting on the wall,
Waterboarding was the final technique, only to be used “should all else fail,” Rodriguez wrote. It was to be carried out only with “specific headquarters approval,” and in keeping with a detailed description laid out in the memo drawn up by the Bush Administration DOJ Legal Counsel’s office, one that specified the dimensions of the board (“approximately 4 feet by 7 feet”), the time air flow should be restricted (“20 to 40 seconds”) and the desired effect (“perception of suffocation and incipient panic.”)
It appears from the Bybee memo that the CIA used “experts” in determining whether the techniques had long lasting health effects, something that even administration lawyers understood to be a violation of the Geneva Conventions. In one reference, Bybee noted that an expert “who has 10 years of SERE training … stated that … insofar as he is aware, none of the individuals who completed the program suffered any adverse mental effects.” In another instance, Bybee wrote, an expert cited by the agency “expressed confidence that the training did not result in any long term psychological impact.” (One Bush administration official theorized that “smoke” had not been approved because tobacco smoke could have had long lasting health effects.)
Also embedded in the documentation of the use of the interrogation techniques is the CIA’s meticulous record-keeping of things like waterboarding.
CIA interrogators used common everyday bottled water in their waterboarding of high value detainees, according to several former and current U.S. officials, both inside the intelligence community and Bush administration.
Rodriguez reported the same thing in a recent Washington Post review of “Zero Dark Thirty.” He wrote, “Instead of a large bucket, small plastic water bottles were used on the three men,” who were subjected to waterboarding.
“The public was only given (quite literally) a cartoon version of what others imagine the technique was like,” he wrote in his memoir. “Irresponsible animations showed detainees practically being dowsed by a fire hose.”
Officials added that each pour from a bottle constituted a single waterboarding procedure.
A one-pint water bottle takes about seven seconds to empty, so four or five bottles would empty in 30 or 40 seconds, the time prescribed by the Justice Department memo approving the process. (Larger two-liter bottles might have been more efficient. Each takes a full 30 seconds to empty.)
Alleged 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, reportedly waterboarded 183 times, Zubaydah and Abdelrahim Hussein Abdul Nashiri, a Saudi who allegedly ran al-Qaida operations in the Arabian Peninsula and once planned to assassinate Vice President Al Gore, all told the Red Cross that bottled water was used in their waterboardings.
'It was hopeless'
Zubaydah described to the Red Cross an experience mostly faithful to the technique prescribed in the Bybee memo, albeit less clinical:
“I was then dragged from the small box, unable to walk properly and put on what looked like a hospital bed, and strapped down very tightly with belts. A black cloth was then placed over my face and the interrogators used a mineral water bottle to pour water on the cloth so that I could not breathe. After a few minutes the cloth was removed and the bed was rotated into an upright position. The pressure of the straps on my wounds was very painful. I vomited.”
He continued: “The bed was then again lowered to horizontal position and the same torture carried out again with the black cloth over my face and water poured on from a bottle. On this occasion my head was in a more backward, downwards position and the water was poured on for a longer time. I struggled against the straps, trying to breathe, but it was hopeless. I thought I was going to die.”
Nashiri said he had the same experience, except the water used was cold.
“Injuries to my ankles and wrists also occurred during the waterboarding as I struggled in the panic of not being able to breathe,” he told the Red Cross.
Not everything was approved by the CIA General Counsel’s office. According to both former intelligence officers and Iraqi Survey Group officials, the Office of the Vice President Cheney wanted to use enhanced interrogation techniques on a recalcitrant Iraqi intelligence officer who they believed had information on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The office angrily refused, according to another former agency official familiar with the request.
Charles Duelfer, the former chief of the Iraq Survey Group, and the man ultimately in charge of interrogations, said at the time that he considered the request reprehensible.
In his 2009 book, “Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq,” Duelfer wrote that he heard from “some in Washington at very senior levels (not in the CIA),” who thought the intelligence officer’s interrogation had been “too gentle” and suggested another route, one that they believed has proven effective elsewhere.
“They asked if enhanced measures, such as waterboarding, should be used,” Duelfer writes. “The executive authorities addressing those measures made clear that such techniques could legally be applied only to terrorism cases, and our debriefings were not as yet terrorism-related. The debriefings were just debriefings, even for this creature.”
Duelfer did not disclose who in Washington had proposed the use of waterboarding. But in a recent interview, a former CIA officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that agency’s acting general counsel John Rizzo refused to permit the use of waterboarding because those same memos that authorized it for al-Qaida detainees said nothing about it being used in Iraq.
It is just the kind of detail that is missing from the movie. But the back-story of the bureaucratic process that changed the way the American government viewed the parameters of torture is in some ways even more dramatic than the hunt for bin Laden.
“The torture displayed in ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ was the result of systematic legal and policy reasoning at the highest levels of government,” said Karen J. Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School and author of “The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days.” “Which techniques, how they would be applied, and with what specific legal authorities were all part of the detailed, cold, bureaucratic trail that methodically removed torture from the realm of illegal and forbidden and placed it in the realm of national policy.”
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I consider myself a liberal and I believe that civil and humanitarian rights are afforded to every individual in the world - except terrorists and those who support terrorism. Al Qaeda murdered 3,000 innocent civilians on 9/11 and along with the Taliban have continued their murdering spree, beheading civilian contractors in the Middle East, not to mention the horrors they inflict on their own women and girls. These bastards have something their victims don't - their lives. So what, they were stripped naked and threatened with rape? Big deal that they were water boarded. They could have had their fingernails ripped off with pliers and had electrodes clamped to their balls and I wouldn't feel one once of sympathy for any of them. It's okay for them to murder, maim, behead, etc., but the big bad US is evil because they resort to any means necessary to track down the world's biggest pieces of s&*^. For those who say, "this opens up the door for other countries to torture our citizens," - if you think that's not already going on, you're sadly mistaken. If you think that any treaty, doctrine, law etc. will prevent horrors from happening during wartime, clearly you've never picked up a book about any war. These people are ignorant, uneducated barbarians. It takes a sick individual to be able to cut someone's head off or to rape a 10 year old girl and then charge her with a crime! Better yet, what sane person flies a plane into a building, killing innocent people? All for what? Your 40 virgins? Good luck with that - I'm pretty sure there are no virgins in hell. Let the families of the victims of 9/11 into Gitmo for a week - what the CIA/FBI/military has done to these dirtbags will be a walk in the park compared to the pain the families would inflict on this trash.
evidently there are. look at these guys, for them it may be heaven...but for the virgins?...not so much so.
Khalid Sheik Mohammed had 183 pints of water poured on his head. I can live with that, and not lose sleep.
damn drought. not enough water to do the job properly.
I just hate films that are bulls**T. This is one of them. I will only see it pirated, not even on TV because then I'll give ratings to the advertisers.
The unsung heroes always suffer because some selfish *ssh*le feels marginalized and gives Hollywood exactly what they want...a big fat lie that will sell. Something like ME, My investigation (and not the other 99 people on the job) is what had us find Bin Laden. Or ME, I'm the Navy Seal who will talk in the name of telling 'The TruthTM' even though I swore not to, it might endanger others, and I might be selling a book too.
kpr expressed exactly how I feel. I DO feel that these guys deserve every bad coming they get. But I'm going to say this too. Torture does not work for getting information. I am simply talking about effectiveness is. And you know who discovered that long before the CIA?
The Nazis.
Therefore, torture, to me, is simply a horrible punishment. We can argue whether it should be used as one, like the death sentence, and all of that stuff. But let's face it, that is a different arguement than if it was useful.
Here's the spin: Hollywood DOESN'T even care if you think it is, or isn't. They just want you to become so enamored or enraged that you drag your ass to see the film so they can make money. Bigelow does that. They are 'sticking to their guns' only because their PR agent wants to stoke the fire so we all go spend dollars among the controversey.
I say F*CK THEM!. If I have to hear from Congressmen from both sides of the aisle, who hate each other, that this film is bulls**T, and I know from every other source that I keep finding that this film is a hack job, meant to make money by being the 'first Bin Laden' film, then I say find a way for the makers to LOSE money over this. Not make it.
Sometimes Chinese rip offs can come in really handy....
You consider wrong. There is very little that separates you from the monsters...
A real liberal would have at least used the proper phrase; "alleged terrorist".
Other than murdering a few thousand Americans you mean. Do you have information we do not? (LOL)
Did America become a nation of Nazis, because we fought them?
Or do you think that by fighting Jihadists, we will start worshiping a black rock in the city of Mecca, and then start a war with Israel?
I was a military intelligence analyst for almost ten years, including a tour in Vietnam (67-68) and concluding as a senior North Korean analyst. And there are some things that have just lapsed into pure lies to the public surrounding the issue of torture.
1) Every intelligence analyst is taught that information gained through torture is is no value. Period. NO VALUE! This is because it is well known that a torture victim will tell the interrogator anything, anything, to make the pain stop.
2) When information is obtained by torture it must be validated or verified through other information. If that other information exists, then the torture was never necessary. If there was no confirming information, then the information gained from torture is worthless.
3) The CIA has a long reputation as "cowboys" who constantly bent or broke the rules (including the rules of logic.) The organization had no in-house analytical capability to speak of. When CIA visitors would come to visit our organization in Japan, we were instructed to completely clear our desks and to discuss NO intelligence information classified higher than Confidential NOFORN. This was because no one trusted the CIA not to discuss highly compartmentalized intelligence with unauthorized people.
4) The CIA did conduct torture in Vietnam, using ARVN intelligence people to do the actual torture. They also tortured North Korean defectors and captured infiltrators, using ROKA intelligence people to do the dirty work. I saw literally hundreds of reports obrtined by torture in these cases and never saw one that was of any use whatsoever. I did see CIA fantasies about the Viet Cong building a base on the moon so they could shoot down Spooky gunships. And I saw numerous CIA fantasies about how South Korea would soon rise up to join North Korea because the South Koreans were ripe for revolution. All were nonsense.
5) Before John McCain throws in his two cents worth, let me spill the beans on The Songbird. Within foiur hours of McCain's capture he had spilled everyuthing he knew in return for medical treatment in the best military hiospital in Vietnam (Gia Lam Military Hospital) where he was visited by Gen Giap and other North Vietnamese dignitaries. He was never tortured and four times refused repatriation, fearing that he would go straight to prison and his father's career would be ruined. I followed the story of the Songbird very closely because it was unusual for reports about a captured Navy lieutenant were being sent to the White House and to CINCPACFLT (McCain's father) in addition to the normal recipients. Google "songbird mccain" for more information. I was one of several people who had to set up changes in the operations of the Crown (C-130) rescue director aircraft, the Jolly Green helicopters, the Sandy rescue air cover aircraft, and the DDs and DEs that the Navy had stationed just off the coast to rescue pilots. McCain had compromised every authentication method and patrol/penetration method and route then in use.
6) All intelligence people are trained that torture does not produce useful intelligence. They are also trained on exactly to whom and how to report those who use torture. The CIA has its staff of lawyers and uses proxies to avoid actually getting their hands dirty. But the bottom line remains that there are better tried and true methods and it is illegal and immoral.
7) Since every intelligence person is trained that torture is illegal, I have long wondered why so many people still do it. It would seen that with no useful intelligence coming out of it, the demand for such intelligence would mean that it would slowly grind to a halt. But IMHO the reason that it continues is the some people enjoy inflicting "legal" pain on a bound and completely helpless individual. Some of this comes from being frustrated by being on the losing side (such as in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan) and some possibly in revenge, but the most comes from simply having the sort of diseased mind that can rationalize torture as somehow being useful and necessary.
8) It is also useful to point out that multiple intelligence agencies have pointed out that the movie is complete bull crap and is neither authentic nor accurate.
RS,
The thing that I don't like about torturing"suspected" terrorists is that we are all assuming that no innocent people are wrongly accused and that they are all already guilty.
How about we PROVE that they are guilty and THEN waterboard them?
water board any enemy combatant...you don't get no trial...they just say your enemy combatant....and start water boarding...sounds right...just say weapons of mass destruction...start bombing...sounds right...ya'll have a good day...
1) who cares what anyone thinks
2) try him, hopefully convict him, hang him. End of both story and problem.
Chris,
Thanks for that post.
.....
Dave-828173
You're next.
Paul - I don't think a real liberal would agree that EIT be used on "alleged terrorists" If your going to torture (yes I call it that) someone, you better make dam sure it's someone who has the information to give.
Personally I think there are situations in our own country in which EIT should be used. My favorite example is the kidnapper who is caught but won't tell where the kidnapped person is. SECONDS COUNT! Then there's the bomber who is caught before a hidden bomb goes off. SECONDS COUNT!
Now believe it or not I consider myself a constitutionalist liberal.
NO matter what they say about our methods.... at the end of the day these muzzies are still alive. Same can't be said for all the people that they tortured and beheaded.
What a joke, the gov. has a standard on how much water can be used to interrogate a terrorist...but they can't balance a budget....
As far as McCain is concerned, he sang like a canary when they put the squeeze to him....read your history.
Its a movie, what else would you expect from hollywood...facts?
I agree that I feel no remorse for actual terrorists that experience this fate, there are two problems.
1.) How can you be sure you're torturing someone who is guilty of a crime, and not just some unfortunate soul fingered by an informant trying to save his own skin.
2.) Torture has been proven, time and time again, to be an extremely INEFFECTIVE way to garner information. You do better with cigarettes and beer.
While it's true that other countries resort to such tactics during wartime, the difference is that when caught/confronted with this truth we put these people behind bars for war crimes. For example, we charged the Japanese with war crimes for WATERBOARDING our soldiers during WWII.
Now we turn around and proudly proclaim we do it ourselves (and promptly lose any and all moral standing in the world).
And the real motivation for torture rears it's head. This is about revenge and retribution, not justice and information gathering. Got it.
The bottomline is that torture does not work, it only harms the nations that engage in it, and torture was in no way responsible for the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
Listen guys. I know we all want to hurt/kill the bad guys. The problem is that not all the bad guys are bad. Also? Hurting and killing the bad guys no matter how good it feels doesn't do a damn thing to help the good people who were hurt or lost.
All it does is make us all animals. If you want to be a good guy? Don't be anything like the bad guys. Stand up, do the right damn thing. I want America to not just beat terrorists. I want it to be better than terrorists.
There's a resason the Bible says to turn the other cheek.
Derek-381097
The purpose is NOT to "get information". Using these techniques the interrogators would NEVER ask a question they didn't already know the answer to. OBL's courier was unidentified because he was the one man out of 40 some suspects that KSM continued to lie about even under pressure. This enabled them to foucus their efforts and eventually led to the compound in Pakistan.
You can complain about it all you want but the reality is that it is unlikely that we would have gotten OBL yet without "torture".
And that means what to this pagan American?
Secularism...don't tread on me !!!!!!
ZenPaladin
What's that? So we can still feel good about ourselves even after our enemies crucify us?
If there's such a thing as right and wrong. Then you have to commit to being right to be able to give justice. If there's no such thing as right and wrong and only the strong survive then you have no reason to complain when you are hurt and killed.
Are you a monster held in check by the the police with guns who will shoot you if you rape the good looking girl next door? Or are you a man who makes a choice to hold back his own desires for the good of neighbors, your self and your country.
It's your choice but be aware.
DrowningGrover
Ther seems to be this misconception that these techniques were used on everyone. They weren't and obviously shouldn't be.
It's not the purpose, I've addressed this above.
LOL! You have no reason to believe that is the motivation for those who have to do it. In fact I imagine it is a somewhat gruelling process even for everyone involved. If they were just seeking "revenge" they could certainly come up with something better than just pouring water on someones face.
This is just wrong whether people choose to accept it or not. It played a crucial albeit small role in leading us to him. I believe we would have gotten him eventually but I doubt we'd have him yet.
ZenPaladin
Do you eat an apple and pretend it's an orange? Surely you could have come up with a more ridiculous comparison?
Backcountry164, you're just making this up, right?
Because your 'reality' is refuted by the evidence that what led us to find Bin Laden was hundreds of hours of investigation by CIA agents who were mostly unnamed. Which says exactly the opposite of what you are saying and the opposite of what that Hollywood crackpot film says.
Its like you are saying, "I know that the evidence is that torture did not lead to the capture of Bin Laden, but I actively choose not to believe that evidence, and by virture of not believing it, it is real that torture helped capture Bin Laden." Now, that sounds like an actual crazy person to me. Something like saying, "Hey, you know even though there's absolutely no medical evidence for it, when a woman is raped, if it is not really a rape, she has a higher chance of getting pregnant." I'm not going to say if a congressional candidate can say it that you don't have crazy peers in high places. But I will say selectively ignoring evidence makes a person nuts, and that's regardless of issue, party, or any other cause.
Sorry that's my best line of BS. I had to reach way down deep to serve up that pile of philosopical mumbo jumbo. :P
Very informative post Chris. As you point out one of the principal reasons for torture is frustration and revenge of some sort. The feeling is that is we subject someone to torture it will get them to reveal the truth (if they even know what that is) but if it were me I would say anything to get the torture to stop. At first I would plead then when they asked leading questions agree etc and so forth. I would be interested as to how "humane" interogation methods work and if it results in better intel.
PS...I will Google "songbird" to see what that's all about.
Derek-381097
Were did I even suggest that there weren't hundreds of hours of investigation? Were did I imply that it was the torutre alone that got us the answers? I think I made it pretty clear that all it did was narrow the field and allow us to focus our efforts.
Dude, you are the only one making @!$%# up to fit your preconceived notions. If you're going to go off on a rant using ridiculous analogies you should avoid calling anyone else a "crazy person" while doing it lest you make a hypocrite of yourself. Honestly, anyone who in anyway compares the rape of an innocent woman to "torture" of known terrorists has serious issues that they should probably get addressed.
Okay, I was trying to use an extreme example. But I asked a question because it sounded crazy. You clarified, no problem.
Here's what I am saying, okay? That I don't mind torturing terrorists because, well, they deserve it. Does this country aspire to something greater? Maybe. I'm not passing a judgement on that. I think murderers should be killed, but that's me. And I understand we have a failed court system that does things like let Casey Anthony and OJ go free, while innocent people have to be freed from jail 15 years later because of DNA evidence and screwed up prosecutors.
BUT, let's just call it what it is. Torture is punishment. That's how its used. From all accounts I can see of legitimate law enforcement, it is not a useful method of getting information. That's because what the Nazis (and we ourselves) proved is that torture simply gets to have the prisoner say what you want them to, anything you want them to, to stop the pain. So, if for example, they didn't know of a terrorist plot, and you hurt them enough, they'll name someone and something you decide you want to go kill as long as you stop torturing them. That right there makes any legitimate information you might get in the mix totally f*cked up.
So, fine, you aren't crazy. BUT I do not appreciate films making s**t up to sell themselves, particularly when that s**t is illegitimate and proven false. If the film went and said something akin to Hillary Clinton talked directly to the Seal Team leader and gave the order for him to go into the compound, it would be just as blatantly false, and I'd be arguing against that too. So it isn't political here.
You know what will make us both feel better? More drone strikes. I call them the bipartisan answer to all the issues. Bush W. used them, Obama used them. And damnit if we haven't killed a whole ton of people who would like to bomb the US with their own medicine.
strange. Those in the intelligence community who, you know, actually ran the programs that led to the demise of OBL seem to disagree with you...
@ chris
i agree chris, i was with 1st special operations, i was trained as well, what works is good interrogation techniques and building a rapport, while looking for inconsistencies in repeated questions. torture in about every case gives you misleading information. something else to think about, we are the land of the free, we are a country that talks about the importance of human rights. we should not be torturing. when we do torture we are no longer upholding the ideals of our nation, instead we have stooped to the level of the terrorist. when we allow ourselves to stoop to their level, they have won IMO.
It is hard to win a battle if the enemy is not afraid to die.
I have no compassion for any of them , no matter what happens it is, in my opinion, deserved.
These are the same groups that straps bombs on their women and children and send them to blow up not only soldiers but innocent by standers.
Until you have personally experienced combat, you have no right to judge those who have.
I fear for the future of our children and our country.
One Poster here gives a rant about John McCain.
McCain couldn't give up much Info. Simply because he wouldn't know that much. The Military doesn't tell you anything that's not related to your mission. Your a Mushroom. McCain was just a pilot on a mission. Anything he knew would mostly be useless in a matter of days possibly hours.
Anytime someone is captured That has any specific Information, Codes whatever are changed immediately as standard operations. Regardless whether that person should surrender that information to his captures. They can't take that Chance. Which is why U.S. policy was changed to reflect this. Tell them what you have to. It's of no real consequence & may minimize harsh treatment. Name, Rank, Serial number no longer applies. Resist a little at 1st, then relent. Your Good to Go. No Consequences when your returned/freed.
Should you be captured & have connections/Family involved in government, It's highly probable when that becomes known to your captures that you will receive special attention. Good or Bad. Yes, there is politics on the battle field. You will be used for propaganda.
A Case in point on Intel that persons may have, Note that Seal Team 6 didn't as a team know what their mission was until they were already on their way. Only those in charge were aware. There may have been scuttlebutt/Rumors, but that's it. All they knew for sure was it was a High Value Target. Recover or take em out. The reason they would know this little bit of information is because they are Seal Team 6. That's their Job. It's what they do.
As for the detainees, The Vast Majority of these people were captured on the Battle field, NOT turned in for money. Most taken after being wounded in battle. And Many when released have returned to the Battlefield & been killed. The Military has numbers on this, but doesn't release this Info. Probably because the Numbers would be Politically Embarrassing And Politically Problematic. Why are you releasing them & Why Aren't you releasing them. A No WIN Situation Politically.
Water-boarding: Only the Top 3 received this & Even they verify that it was done as prescribed & Told to the Public by Our Officials.
This has been used on about 27K Airforce personnel as part of their training. I assume most of these were Pilots at risk of capture. Probably a like number of Navy Pilots. All Black Op's train for this. The Airforce has discontinued this & possibly the Navy. Reason being that it is hard to train people to resist water-boarding. There are those who can, but the percentages are small. Not beneficial on a large scale but probably works well in small groups such as Black Ops personnel. Where the time involved in special training is beneficial.
For the right people with proper training, Water-Boarding can become totally ineffective. The Reason it works is that nearly everyone panics. It's an involuntary reaction of the Body. I would classify the technic of overcoming Water-Boarding to people who can meditate & drop their heart rate by 80%. Very Hard to Do, but it can be done by some.
To the Argument that if you do as they do, Then you're no Better then They are. To this I say BS...
Through out History, Victims have visited their attackers with the same brought upon them & afterwards revert to their original Lifestyle. The Difference is the Attackers do it by choice & intent. The Victims do it in self defense/Survival. Not by mere choice. When the deed is done they revert back to their former lives.
Do as they do, Then you're no Better then They are. It is a great Argument for those who would do you harm. It means in time they can Exterminate all of you with little resistance. And your philosophy dies with you.
so many problems with this..... the movie is full of BS, its hollywood so i expect nothing but misinformation and exaggeration so i will never watch this crap of a movie. i dont even believe bin laden was killed as they produced no evidence of his death and they disposed of the body at sea for some weird reason. i also would of expected more outrage from bin laden followers after his so-called death but there was none, also weird. they riot over muhammad stuff but nothing for bin laden? thought he was some kinda leader or something?
for those saying torture does not work, you are historically wrong at all levels. torture has been known to work throughout history and has been used to control societies and break wills. McCain was tortured along with many more during vietnam and he cracked as did others, that was torture and it worked so please explain to us why you are saying torture does not work when we have evidence that it does? how do you think dictators stay in power? did Hitler not use torture? how bout Mao? pol pot? Stalin? Genghis khan? Saddam? Castro? the list goes on and on as evidence of torture working.
torture is not just about getting information, its a lot more that that and if you cant figure that out that you are a programmed robot.
when we forget history we repeat it
My understanding is that the 'waterboarding' of attack mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed led to the identification of Osama bin Laden's courier, and it was by tracking this courier that they located bin Laden's location, which resulted in killing bin Laden.
Perhaps the 'waterboarding' of only 3 of the terrorist leaders was not so 'useless' after all.
And since “waterboarding had been used on 26,829 U.S. Air Force personnel between 1992 and 2001”, should we prosecute the head of the Air Force for mass 'torture'? And unless I'm mistaken, virtually all of them were 'tortured' under Bill Clinton's watch.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Here's a question for those who would refuse to allow using Waterboarding because they consider it 'Torture'. Suppose we captured a terrorist that knew where a nuclear weapon was hidden in the USA, and it was going to be used in a few weeks to kill perhaps 100,000 innocent Americans, and the only reliable way to get the information in time to stop the attack was Waterboarding, would you insist that they be allowed to kill those 100,000 Americans - just to maintain your 'moral stance'?
Chris-749391
Your post regarding the CIA and EITs mirrors what was written by Ali Soufan in The Black Banners. It seems the FBI was doing a fine job interrogating terrorists using traditional, proven techniques until the CIA stepped in.
- I'm OK with torturing Al Qaeda guys we capture
- I don't care what kind of info we get and what portion of it is truthful
- It's nice when we can cross check info that comes out and come up with useful info, but I'm OK if it doesn't work out
- I'm OK if a guy that's hanging out with bad guys gets mistaken for a bad guy and gets tortured... he should watch who he has as friends
- I sat we give the CIA guys the intelligence star
- at the end of the day, if you push really hard, you get both false and true info, so the analytical problem becomes differentiating through cross checking... so torture can be effective
- after hearing fundamentalist Muslim rhetoric, I don't care if we torture every single last one of them to death... they would certainly do it to us if they could.
I don't care if we use "enhanced interrogation" techniques or if they are effective.
When you're dealing with the level of filth that these terrorists can only be compared with, I want all options on the table.
Having the threat of torturing the cowards is 2 steps in our favor as far as I'm concerned. If the terrorist knows its a possibility, it is at that point, effective. Any information obtained can then be analyzed and cross-referenced for accuracy.
Never, let your enemy know your intentions. It they simply think you will use "enhanced interrogation" techniques you have the upper hand.
The problem you have with that argument is that torture is the least reliable way to get information so your argument is based on a false premise. Now here's a question for you that's not based on a false premise. Same scenario but the only reliable way to get the information and stop the attack is to be nice to the detainee, would you insist on torturing them because it gives you a sense of justice being served? The professional interrogators at Gitmo say that their most effective weapon for extracting information, is offering them ice-cream sandwiches in exchange for intel.
SetYouFree
No, but I will wager that a significant part of the “being nice” approach to getting the information is because the threat of torture is hanging over their heads.
I hope you’re not naive enough to think that someone committed so ferociously, to destruction and massacre, so as to plant a nuclear device will just succumb to niceties without something more ominous motivating them in the event of niceties not working.
The world witnessed 19 devoted terrorists use 4 jetliners as WMD’s very successfully. To think simply being nice will get them to surrender their nuclear device is plebeian
I have no problem with EIT's being used against terrorists. Does this make me evil?
I just saw that movie today, in fact. I had to know. Another person I sometimes go to movies with declined because of the rumors about how horrendous the torture scenes were. So I went alone. The rumors are exaggerated. I was expecting something very extreme. It was less extreme than I was led to believe. I have seen PG-13 movies that were worse. I would say this one was a PG-13 not an R. Yes, it was not nice (don't bring your 10 year old), but not to the degree expected. I think they did a little hype and controversy to sell tickets.
But this movie has opened a can of worms because it is an issue. The CIA web-site has a denial that is not a denial written by its chief.
As far as I am concerned, these were guys that killed a lot of people and they believe in killing people as their religion. So they got a little wet....
Did it work? I don't know. This is the way the movie showed it: For about five minutes the screen is dark, and you hear recordings of calls from people in the towers panicking after the planes crashed into them. Then the first scene you see is "enhanced interrogation" of some guy they grabbed (terrorist). One CIA guy is slapping him around while the red-haired CIA heroine watches. More or less they tied him up a bit, slapped him around some, waterboarded him, put a dog collar on him, and shoved him in a box. When waterboarding him, they had him on the floor face up, threw a thick piece of cloth over his face, and poured a pitcher of water on his face. With the dog collar, they made him crawl half-naked like a dog. Any answers he gave were compared with other persons they were interrogating separately, and apparently they were comparing answers of all the separated captives. What seemed to work well, at least in the movie, was one day they approached him differently. They had kept him awake for a few days and he had gotten "out of it" such that memory was unclear. He slept and was given food and a friendlier approach. The interrogators said to him that all was well and that he had cooperated and spilled all while he was delirious, so now it's over. The guy, believing that, began to blabber about everything. What he didn't know was that that was a bluff (they did not know a thing). What worked were old cop tricks.
Well, that was what was in the movie. How true it is, who knows. Movies do things for effect and story line.
What stood out in this movie was how long the interrogation scenes were. They took up a good bit of film on those sorts of scenes. The rest was CIA and other government types arguing and guessing over information, some of which was scanty and elusive. The last part of the film was how they raided Osama's compound, which more or less fits in with versions of the story I have already heard.
My first impression after seeing it when asked, "Hey, is it pro-CIA or anti-CIA?" is this: It is what is in you. If your memories of 9-11 were stark and horrific, you probably will not give a rat's behind what they did to the terrorists they caught. If you don't remember 9-11 that starkly, perhaps you may feel the U.S. was too harsh. The interrogations were portrayed, but 9-11 was not. We saw no images of the towers coming down or of people jumping out the windows to their deaths because the burning fires were worse. I remember those scenes way back when it happened. I remember when people in my area were saying "Nuke 'em all; let Allah sort them out!" Rumors circulated quickly that we were torturing the terrorists we caught, and everybody was for it. Everybody. The impact of those days is now muted and forgotten. Now we are wondering if pouring water on terrorists is too nasty. Back then, people would of thought that was some sort of joke.
The main problem I have with the movie is the full depiction of a waterboarding. Now everyone knows what it is and how it is done. Now I wonder how people will survive junior high school. It looks so easy to do, I would bet school bullies will be doing it to other kids. It will be copied. That may end up being a problem. It may become a youthful rite of passage in some of the rougher schools.
Derek-381097
Wrong again. More drone strike don't make me feel better. I appreciate the effectiveness of the tool but the reality is that they are little more than a cop-out for Obama. He can use them to claim he is active against the terrorists but the reality is that every time they blow one of those guys up they blow up a hell of a lot of intel also. Sometimes it is undoubtedly the only realistic option but certainly some of these people could be captured. But then the President would be in quite the pickle. He can't send them to Guantanamo, and he can't interrogate them to any worthwhile degree. So he just blows them up along with half of their family.
That's something I need the liberals to explain to me, poring water on a guys face=bad; blowing him up along with anyone near him=good??? Really???
All I know is that I've been told otherwise by people whom I believe would know.
SetYouFree "The problem you have with that argument is that torture is the least reliable way to get information so your argument is based on a false premise."
Apparently they tried all of the other methods on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, without success, which is why they resorted to waterboarding - WHICH DID WORK. And interrogators have ways of verifying false information intended to mislead them.
Perhaps your 'false premise' is what is false.
Empress-
You can find it on youtube, it's already out there. Good description of the movie (I too watched it the other day) I wasn't sure how I felt during those scenes, I kept thinking do we really do this? I was disturbed and fascinated all at the same time.
I asked my husband how he felt about it, and he just shrugged and said, "I've been waterboarded a few times when we were traing, but it's not done like this movie shows." (which is why I don't understand why the article states the Army and the Marines don't use it in training)
All I can say is, in my opinion, do what you have to do if it means saving lives.
1SGFitzWife41D, That shows my age. I never purposely looked up waterboarding on you tube. Yes, probably some have done so. It is just now that 100 times more teenagers will do so since it is now the subject of controversy.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I know there are those things we gotta do for national security, save lives, and all that. In the 60's we had the luxury of not having to know about it. It was deeply classified. Now that we do everyone has to sort out their feelings on it.
I wonder if the U.S. has become unskilled and clumsy about it. Has our spy trade-craft degenerated? Are we substituting brutishness for brains? I am for it if it is necessary and the best and only way, but I wonder, are there better ways?
This morning I woke up thinking about the whole thing with David Koresh at Waco. I remember it. I remembered how that was badly handled. It ended up with the whole building burning up with the cultists inside including the children. It was a botch job if there ever was one. The ATF and other government types proceeded to amp up the pressure by doing grotesque and frightening things to them. It ended badly, then later, we had a domestic terrorist attack on that very date, and act of revenge for Waco.
It was said by some afterward that it was handled all wrong because the Branch Davidians were a cult with their "messiah." They were armed and had apocalyptic-type beliefs. In a way, there were similarities to some of those middle eastern types. Someone had let me hear of David Koresh speaking after he had gotten shot and was going to die soon. There is nothing freakier than hearing from someone in that position. He felt he was dying as and end times saint and was the righteous one. The thugs from the government only solidified the view he had of himself as a martyr and his followers view of him as such. They were ever more determined to hold out in that compound, not surrender, die and go to Heaven. And so they did, in flames. Perhaps that is how some of these middle eastern sorts that get nabbed and interrogated see themselves.
My impression from the CIA, at least in the movie, is that they don't know how to deal with cults and people devoted to cults. They somehow lack in that area. Al Quaida is just a very large cult. Dealing with cults and their brainwashing is an area of expertise. Perhaps they lack such expertise. Bin Laden died in his compound, and I would bet his followers see him like David Koresh. They no doubt vow to carry on and have a new crop of leaders and followers. This war is far from over.
I actually don't live very far from Waco, I think that whole thing was a clusterf*ck and they should've been left alone, I don't personally believe they were actually a cult like they've been portrayed. But it is things like this that make me question what we should and shouldn't do to people, only in the sense that if it's okay to do it to terrorists when will it be okay to start doing it to our own citizens? Should we waterboard people accused of say kidnapping? I would be okay with that if it meant saving a life. Like I said the whole thing kinda freaks me out, but I also feel it's a necessary evil.
It is too bad that MSNBC did not allow this thread to last for several days due to the importance of this national discussion. I am sure that the press hates the CIA and have never been a friend but the press has an obligation to the American people to promote such free speech. The fact that we the people can even have this conversation should be heralded as a point in America's favor. Many countries would Never allow you to question the methods of their Intelligences services. Even the CIA is allowing this conversation to take place so they should get credit since this kind of thing is usually supposed to be VERY Secret.I know that I am a nobody, but just in case someone out their sees this conversation as important as I, please consider putting this back up for America to continue this conversation. The CIA has been more than generous so it is only fair the press be fair too. Healthy debate is good if we eventually fix America.
A note: This is only a snap shot of the many things the CIA does. They have all sorts of divisions like any other government facility. There are super geeks at Langley that never have seen an interrogation take place any more than the rest of us. There is a proud CIA history if one is willing to pursuit this knowledge. The CIA saves many lives in it's history and in the present. This film just admits that on some occasions you have to be tough. It would not hurt to look into other techniques but if it works do not knock it too much since there are thousands of lives at stake when you have enemies that wish ALL Americans to be dead.
"Even the CIA is allowing this conversation to take place....." ???????????
Do you think the CIA should have any jurisdiction over what is discussed here in the USA?
Time for you to look into the history of the OSS Cornelius Starr, Hank Greenberg, the CFR and AIG and KROLL.
Isn't "Zero-Dark-Thirty" brought to you by the same a**bag who directed that P.O.S "The Hurt Locker?" BOTH movies are based in reality so far as there is a conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan and American forces are there. End of reality, bring on the fantasy. Absolute hollywood B.S. that aggrandizes individuals and exaggerates ridiculously to make it "a better story" which boosts audiences and ticket sales.
The next movie these retards make will be based on the tragic "Battlefield 3" conflict and the untold story of the heroes that fought there....Pffft!!!
What is your complaint, exactly? Neither of those films claimed to be documentaries. No one is looking for the truth in hollywood's high profit driven productions. We can't get congressional investigations to provide us with anything resembling the factual truth. Why would you expect more from hollywood?
Remember folks, these poor ...."detainees"...are there for a reason.
Yeah, the people who turned them in as terrorists wanted the cash being offered at the time.
Really?
Turned them in for cash, hmm, where have we heard this before long ago?
Didn't the African's turn in their own people to whites for cash etc. to be used as slaves?
In making a contrast, the ones who turned them in were worse than the detainees.
Yet they (the ones who turned them in) remained free to fight against America.
PLUS they had extra cash.
AND they got their decoys.
The jerks in Guantanamo are and were there for a reason.
The ones they let go returned to kill again.
Torture is not good enough for these fanatics.
Viewer_Ready
Are you drunk or something?
Hardly.
You, might be though.
It would seem you have a comprehension issue.
I asked because so much of what you said had zero connection to the topic at hand...of course, with you that is par for the course.
@culheath is correct. The vast majority of prisoners in Guantanamo and in rendition prisons around the world (estiumated as another 4,000 prisoners) were "sold" to CIA operatives. The going price was E2,000 euros for a "plain vanilla prisoner" and E5,000 euros for a "foreign fighter."
Most of the "terrorists" were sold for one of several reasons: 1) to settle grudges in family vendettas, 2) to resolve village power struggles (as in turning in the elder so you could take his place.) 3) just for the cash (especially with strangers) and 4) for pure xenophobia. The villagers spoke Pashtun or Urdu depending on the area. Both the cultures considered the other "foreign" and therefore fair game to be sold to the CIA. Additionally they were extremely wary of people from other countries including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Libya and considered them as "foreign" as we would a Martian.
The matter was compounded by the fact that CIA black funds are usually under budget pressure to "use it or lose it" by the end of the fiscal year. The CIA was actually buying terrorists to some degree simply because they had money that they needed to spend or not only would the unspent money go away, but next year's budget would be more difficult to justify.
Thank you, I will try to explain my self in more simple terms next time.
Yeah, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or as stated, their neighbor wanted their goatherd or wife or daughter.
viewer - I'll assume your last line was in regards to the person turning in their fellow countryman for cash, otherwise culheath is right and your post makes little sense.
Chris-749391
And you've neglected to share your source of this information why? Because, no offense but, I'd love to take a look at that info for myself.
Funny considering the recidivism rate for those released from Guantanamo. Most of those released are sent to reeducation camps in Saudi or Jordan. Of those who proceed on nearly 89% return to AQ, AQAP or the Taliban. Some are recaptured in raids that didnt initially target them. So I guess all that torture or false imprisonment was so unnecessary for these model people?
It makes sense "realistic".
Sometimes you read into a situation and your scope gets broader.
I guess I'm the only one who gets what you're saying viewer. Strike that, riley got it too.
You can't really put it in more simplistic terms.
Ask yourself a question! What compassion did the terrorist's have for those they murdered? Then face the fact that the terrorist is still alive, eating three meals a day, living a life of ease, practicing their religion, and all at your expense!
In case you haven't figured it out yet, the terrorists were/are puppets for the same people who brought you the subprime mortgage crisis and the loss of freedoms called "Homeland Security". Wake up, you fools.
What compassion do you have for the 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians we bombed and killed over the course of the illegal war?
To be honest...none!
There is no such thing as an "illegal" war.
ALL wars are either voted on or pressed forward by leaders.
Who can say any of it is "illegal"?
War is not your run of the mill situation.
Not being funded (right away) does not make a war illegal.
I appreciate the honesty.
The international community through agreed upon definitions and legally binding treaties ratified by our congress.
Any country who starts a war rarely gives a rats about what the rest of the world thinks.
How many wars do you think are raging this very minute?
And when 3000 of our people are killed in a matter of moments.
The legality goes out the window.
Now, I do agree that Irag could have been handled a different way but Afghanistan was and still is necessary.
Just because Bin Laden is dead does not mean we should not still be there.
We have other reasons to be there.
Bin Laden was a primary media target.
NOT the primary military objective.
IRAN is.
That is why we are still there, and that is why Obama can't slam the doors shut there.
Well considering I talked to quite a few Iraqis about this very topic I was told in no uncertain terms (through our terp) that sacrifice is needed to get rid of a dictator that tortured, maimed and killed the relatives of those he opposed in order to maintain compliance during his rule.
Not to mention the fact that he painfully gassed to death 10,000 Kurdish men, women and children and 100,000 Iranians before the first invasion. Abu Ghraib prisoners told a friend of mine who out processed them that what the Americans did was nothing compared to what Saddam did to people while imprisoned there so you tell me Culheath, which devil do you want? The one that you liberals posture up that would still be killing and torturing his people or the one whose country you live in, albeit hate most everything about it, as has ended hostilities there after a deposed dictator and his sociopath sons are dead?
Viewer_Ready--your last line--and that is why Generals on the ground were so upset when Obama announced far in advance exactly when we WERE going to leave Afghanistan.
Obama said FAR in advance that he would close Guantanamo too.
Sadly i believe you're correct Viewer, I personally would like to get the hell out of there though, not because I think we're "losing" but because those people say they want our help so badly yet while we're trying to help them they turn their weapons on us. Screw that, screw them.
riley- very well said.
To terrorize one person is to be a terrorist.
I agree i say, as is i sit here in absolute terror of you statement........
Wouldn't it be nice if America just had as opponents Radical Islam, Russia and China, instead of all the illegal aliens, legalized Americans who neither want, nor will ever become real Americans and traitors, oops Progressives. I don't do well with synonyms.
No, you don't... At least you seem to recognize one of your defects.
skibum
You are the problem, not the progressives.
So much for the idea that our country was founded and based on Christian values...
American's would sell out Jesus faster than an innkeeper in Bethlaham over 2000 years ago...
Whoa, whoa whoa, Obama would and did, not me. He left his church after years of attending to become president. #1 reason he never got my vote. No courage for his convictions. Dont lump me in with he opportunistic ppl here. I dated a girl like that once.
And just HOW pray tell do you show "courage for your convictions" when you are devoid of them in the first place?
Obama never left the church of his belief. There was a question about that churches Religious Leader (supposed connection to terrorist) so he found another Religious leader. He never changed his convictions of Islam. I guess you got short term memory that many people suffer from.
uh. Just an FYI, but Obama is not a Muslim.
/boggle
FYI glover, obama was born a muslim and raised as a muslim and islam does not allow you to leave the faith. why not read obamas own books and you just might find some truth? he sure aint no christian.
"he sure aint no christian."
Then he's the POTUS for me. The last thing the world needs is another person with access to nuclear launch codes and true belief in an unprovable sky fairy.
Hopefully Khalid was able to escape with that nice mohair sweater.
Herewegoagain--the black one or the white one? ;p
Enhanced interrogation works effectively on 90% of the individuals it is practiced upon...the limp wristed leftists will deny it, but in 10 minutes everyone of them would be confessing their closet fantasies and the secret location of their porn stashes.... no doubt....And we would have not caught up with OBL without it or stopped several terrorist attacks. Anybody want to try it and bet...say $10,000.00 on 50 rounds of water boarding and all the subject has to do is hang on to one secret "word"?
Do you have any proof that torture (lets call it what it is) works on 90% of individuals?
Well we could find out if it works on left handed golfers and go from there.......
IA.ScooterTramp
No need, I'll gladly give you lessons.
It's usually Republicans who have porn stashed away.
golfseft....I do, i seen it happen in the republic of viet nam, we had 10 prisoners, after the korean interrogator got done with the first one, the the other 9 sang like canarys...
True enough. We liberal types aren't ashamed of it. ;)
Zen--You 'liberal types' like Barney Frank and Weiner?
Sorry- all the evidence shows that torture will make people say anything- not exactly what you want.
what evidence tiberius? there is none you can provide but history provides tons evidence that torture does work, torture is not just about getting information, its about control.
If torture will get you to say anything, why wouldn't you try to get it to stop sooner by telling your torturer the truth? What is the point in holding out until you're dead or wish that you were?
Or your torturee, desperate to make it stop, says whatever he believes he wants you to hear. Then you waste time and resources chasing down leads that go nowhere. Then you torture him some more. It's a cycle that leads nowhere.
I'm fully OK with torturing jihadis just to watch them squirm, but let's be honest, and not try to pretend that there is any other value than gettting that feeling of revenge.
What any detainee knows is that you, their torturer, want to hear the truth, which the detainee, so far, has denied you. If he, the detainee who has already been asked nicely, and then tortured, then continues to LIE to you just to get you to temporarily stop the "torture", he knows that he is just going to be tortured again. If you are the detainee, what is the point in making him torture you to get the truth that you are eventually going to give him? Remember the argument being made is that you will say anything to get it to stop. Wouldn't the truth be included in the set of "anything"? Or do you just not know what you are saying, by contradicting yourself.....
For the past several years, Hollywood has produced propaganda films supporting anti-Islamic sentiments and gay/lesbian/bi lifestyle preferences.
Nazi Germany had propaganda films. Communist countries had propaganda films.
Propaganda disgusts me.
You think Hollywood is bad?
Check out the perverted right wing cable news network and insane stream media spewing hideous conservative propaganda all sponsored by the evil empire of dumb FUX NEWS...
Then stop pushing it.
Hey NewCrook...how about the BULLSH*T LAMEstream media, who is in bed with the POS Pretender-in-Chief and reports NOTHING that goes against the b*stard's f*cked-up agenda or piece-f-sh*t ideologies. You have a lot of nerve, you hypocrite SOB...
And England and the United States produced no propaganda films during WWII? I can give you a very long list of them.
its been proven that fox news viewers are the least informed on general issues multiple times sooooooooooooo.......you're wrong......again
Nazi germany had a slogan is was called "forward"...ring a bell?, pmsnbc is always shouting "lean forward"...
Coyote, go dance on a country western bar somewhere, and leave the discussion to the adults.
Who proved that mike? msnbc...lol
This is off-topic but does anyone else see the irony in the fact that liberal Hollywood plays a huge role in promoting the gun culture here in the US but then the liberals in Hollywood denounce that very same thing?
mike-3234995
Somehow I doubt they are any less intelligent than the people who never pass on an opportunity to whine and cry about Fox News even when it has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.
I went through S.E.R.E training in the 70's. I can't say enough about how useful psychological "torture" is. I personally have no problems using it to gain important information from those who mean to kill us.
SO you would be OK with it being used on our own people?
golf
get real, its war..its not a board game of sorry.
you want to be the only country playing by the "i feel so bad" rule book while other countries dont give a damn.
golfsleft...a form of waterboarding is used on military personnel going through SERE training. A modified form of waterboarding has been part of "field interrogation" since World War Two. Pull a t-shirt over a person's head, wrap a triangular bandage over his eyes and mouth, hold him down and slowly poor water on to the bandage. It feels like drowning, unless of course you know what to expect. With a little training and some prior experience to the technique, a person can withstand waterboaring.
Personally, I've had it done to me, but I wouldn't use it on anyone because I don't think it works that well against a truly hardened captive. But, I don't have any argument against it being used on terrorists or anyone when timing of the information is critical. The moral conundrum of using torture to exact vital information is a difficult one, but if it means saving innocents by torturing a bad person, well that's a sin I'd have to live with.
By the way...pray you never fall into the hands of the bad guys...if you think waterboarding is bad...read the accounts of American POW's held by North Vietnam.
So because other countries torture our people it's OK? You're OK with the US lowering itself to the level of North Vietnam?
if they deserve it then yes....I don't want to be the country that says, do what you want to us! we won't fight back!
Golfsleft....And what makes us any better or worse than any other country in the world?....Liberals always use that argument of "we don't want to lower ourselves"....pull your head out of your arse and take off the rose colored glasses....
If it saves the life of one military person golfsleft, then yes.
I watched this movie the other day, I enjoyed it, but then again I know the difference between reality and hollywood.
The main point missed: EIT were used against persons not recognized b the Geneva convention. Additionally, the EIT exercises used against these combatants was nowhere near as brutal as those employed by other countries and combatants.
Would I feel differently if the CIA was staging masked men with captives in front of a camera executing them by beheading? Of course. But the US didnt do that. Argue the merits of whether torture works. Thats a much better argument than trying to compare waterboarding to what others have done to our soldiers and civilians.
I went through SERE at Warner Springs in Jan 77. I was Navy aircrew. Some of our instructors were ex Korea and Viet Nam POWs so we heard the straight " soldier to soldier" details you won't read in the sanitized news.
I recognized all of the "harsh"methods from my class. I had the box, I had the grounding, I had the wall slaming and the waterboard.
We all understood that these were to just give of a mild taste of what the rest of the frigging world does to our guys that are captured. It was done to give us a chance to see how we would deal with this when faced with being captured.
Ask any one of us then if Americans would torture prisoners. and we would say no. But we all understood that you didn't get info from t he bad guys by putting them up in hotels with room service either. We thought that waterboarding was a good method because after it was over, you still had all your parts, not bleeding, and could walk back to your cell. That wasn't torture back then.
The definition of torture has changed so much in the last 5-10 years that it really is a different conversation. I mean, come on... taking nude pictures of a POW is torture? Embarrassing , sure, but that is not is the same league as having fingers chopped off, or arms pulled from your sockets, or made to lick the commode with your tongue.
face it, you're better off because there are people out there willing to go 'bump in the night' ensuring that your freedoms are defended.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? - Mark 8:36
thats why he refuses to leave the U.S.
Culheath...one quote deserves another..."We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm" - George Orwell
It's a good quote...
Your use of that quote describes the reality that the world is a dangerous and violent place and that there are those we assign to guard from those dangers.
The intention of my quote was to point out that it is important to protect those guards by restricting their actions to only those necessary to defend us. If we allow or sanction our guards to act in ways that are as dangerous to what they are supposed to be guarding us from, what security really have we gained? How long before we have good reason to be afraid of the guards themselves. How long before we have slipped over into a police state on the rational that it will keep us safe? How much closer are we now to that circumstance because we even tentatively accept the inhumane methods we use to disparage our enemies?
You want examples of slippery slopes? None is so pertinent as accepting torture as a plausible defense strategy.
Quite right, Kipling was the first to use it, but unfortunately Kipling isn't as well read these days as he once was, so the Orwell usage is more familiar to most and hence why I used it.
Shakespeare penned an appropriate line Henry V, " Besides, there is no King, be his cause never so spotless, if it comes to the arbitrament of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers...". The point being several...there are always pre-existing trials and tribulation and neither the King or his soldiers are responsible to each other or one another for all things, but it is upon each of us to be responsible.
That logic fits nicely into what Abraham Lincoln said about having to do something distasteful so serve a greater good. When Linocln suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War, it was a clear violation of the Constitution, but necessary to preserve the Union. Lincoln's answer to Chief Justice Taney, the Congress and history was "Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest one be violated?".
It did not create the dreaded "slippery slope", Habeas Corpus was restored in 1864 and remains so today, even though in a dangerous time it was suspended for a short while. The faith and belief in the common good, the basic foundation of the truth in the American ethic provides us the ability to adjust during dangerous times and then restore ourselves when the danger passes.
Remember Thomas Paine's "Common sense" and his words about the "Sunshine patriot...". There was deeper truth there than you might know.
RT,
Good points...thanks for your input.
Thank you BOTH for your input. Well-thought and literate arguments from both.
First of all the reason we as a country shouldn't torture detainees is because we don't want captured Americans to be tortured. Eventhough these individuals fully deserse to be tortured. We as a country do follow the Geneva Covention. As far as waterboarding goes, we have been doing this to our own troops for decades. When I was in the Air Force back in the late 70's I was stationed at a base in the north west that had a mountain survival school. They would let airmen loose in the woods for a couple of days then capture them, interrogate them using waterboarding techniques and other physical abuses. So it never surprised me when all this news about waterboarding came out.
Oh, puh-leeease. So you are saying (Along with our terrroist a$$-kissing POS Pretender-in Chief) that we should all be nice to these bast*rds? I can see it now. "Oh, please, Mr. terrorist. Please tell us what you know, and I promise to be nice to you. We are one big happy family here..." The PresiDEBT has gone on WAY too many 'apology' tours and has tried to pacify the enemy, with bullsh*t words and American taxpayer "doanations". This is f*cked in the head. America is complicit in everything these terrorists do...soon, we will all be grabbing our ankles and saying 'Thank you sir, may I have another..?'
wow you are really that dumb....It's "donations" btw. If you can't spell simple words then how is anyone supposed to take you seriously? He never once apologized when he went to visit world leaders. Terrorist ass kisser? Like Bin laden? Right. Turn of faux news and go outside.
You don't deserve to be an American with your attitude. I respected YOUR douchebags BUSH and REAGAN even if they F-ed up this country.
Yet now their saying this president has done just as many renditions as Bush did. Apologist? Hardly! It's looks to me like Obama is turning out to be a right-wing Democrat .
Do you honestly believe our people aren't tortured? Be it American civillians or military persons?
Jvalen, in a perfect world, that would work. Except that this is not a perfect world and man cultures have no problem torturing anyone (including their own).
Think of this way, we were invited to a fought in a war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi invasion and it ultimately cost us 9/11 because Bin Laden believed his honor had been usurped by the US.
Jvalen--sorry, but US captives ALREADY are tortured. They don't even have to be combatants. Remember Richard Jewell?
One of the main reasons why the US still doesn't like women in combat is because we KNOW the kind of things that captors would do to them. And that makes us squeamish.
Why are our leadership and the media and every bleeding heart out there in a uproar over this? They were the people in charge of the vast majority of the terror attacks that were being carried out here in the U.S. and abroad. And it has been suggested they were in charge of attacks on our military personnel, and we have no idea of them they killed or injured.
So, we are going to get our panties in a twist over us using methods to get answers that can be considered EXTREMELY mild to the ones they would use to get answers from any of our people, including civilians that they caught.
I am a graduate of SERE and let me tell you: don't piss off the bearded one or the old one. EVER.
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edit
so sit there on your hands when the next attack happens and show your compassion for the terrorist as usual.
SO your OK with people torturing captured Americans?
yes i am, its part of the game.
Againt - war is not a game.
sure it is, according to your "i feel so bad " rule book.
Against, I'm glad your OK with, but people like John McCain who was torture for years by the North Vietnamese is aginst torture. Your very brave behind your keyboard.
So Againt, when are you joining up?
dont tell me about mccain and his torture, my father was also tortured in nam. i know all to well of my fathers scars.
i did join , i spent 8 yrs in the army, i went to war while you sat on your hands crying for the terrorist.
Where were you stationed? What part of the Army?
Against, we will have to take your word that you actually did what you say. You didn't mention how your father felt about being tortured.
my duty station was 101st ,ft. campbell,ky and as for my father , he didnt cry about, it stayed in and finished his 21 years and retired.
The movie takes place LONG after these bureaucratic moments took place. The author even notes that. WHY is this "missing" from the movie? You dont have to treat every movie like the birth of a super hero. We dont need decade old back stories to watch a movie the ending of which is already known. Binny is dead.
"Binny" is allegedly dead. Allegedly, so is Seal Team 6.
for all of you pansy a$$ wimps who relish the life of an american with the freedoms you have in the greatest country on the planet who are horrified of the practices used to give you the life you have as a free american. then i have one question for you.
why are you still here in my country?
"..greatest country on the planet.."
I didn't know you were a Canadian.
Why are YOU in MY country? The USA has a reputation for being humanitarian. What is this NORTH KOREA?
Our society is FOUNDED on fairness, and right to fair trial, not on "shoot first ask questions later"
As for your 'pansy a$$ wimps' comment, TRY ME JACKA$$! Tough talk or wielding a gun doesn't make you tough, it makes you IGNORANT.
bill washington called someone out to fight on the internet!!
Watch out everyone!!!!
No, just showing a moron a mirror. People think that not wanting to kill everyone different than you is pansy a$$ed. But yeah, if you like, we can go.
I don't need to hold an assault rifle and listen to Ted Nugent to be tough, I can just calmly kick your a$$
Yeah, Ol Bill sounds pretty tough, he'll probably kick you when your down, oh wait thats not "fair", so he'll let you stand up before he hits with another paragraph...
Bill Washington--"our country was founded on fairness and the right to a trial"
Don't read too much history, do you?
America WON against the Brits because we were willing to use 'guerilla war techniques' against the Brits.
SCALPING did not originate with the Indians.
My great great grandfather spent most of the Civil war imprisoned on Ships Island off Biloxi Mississippi, where the 'noble' northern jail keepers regularly beat the prisoners, and starved them.
Does the term "smallpox blanket" mean anything to you? How about Wounded Knee?
Sorry, but we are no more "noble'' than any other country, and in fact, could be said to follow a motto that some of the colonies that became states took as a motto: Don't TREAD on me.
And don't forget, when you are extolling our 'kindness', the group in IL that takes cases of prisoners who were falsely convicted of a crime, MANY of whom 'confessed' under duress.
The point MoMaid is the ideals and principles of the country matter more than the sordid history that got us here to a more evolved state of affairs. Nothing is more foul than the flesh trade of slavery and yet it was abandoned on IDEALS and PRINCIPLES. The very fact that most of us see those actions you mentioned as wrong and a horror to be ashamed of indicates that we are more principled people living in a nation operating closer to its founding and elevated principles.
Some Christians cannot find the strength to live according to the evolved and demanding principles set forth by their religion, but they constantly try and that's better than just throwing the principles out the window because they are too hard. Giving in to vengeance and violence is easy. Maintaining your principles in the face of danger and hardship is not...in fact, it is heroic.
So do you want our country to be a heroic one or hypocritical one? That's our choice and there's nothing at all "pansy" about choosing face the demands of the former.
So since America has turned to making money on whoring their children, drugs, violence, crime, murder and now hit gangs that execute people without a trial. When do we get to see the movie of 26 people-children getting slaughtered by a gunman. When do we get to see the movie of the theater killings and other ignorant idiocy where we justify and give glory to murderers, over the top violence and child exploitation..Go O-Abomination in America. Then they blame guns,, they should be blaming all you idiots who thrive on sicknesses and greed no matter who you exploit in getting it.
Who cares? This is why this country can no longer win its wars. We are too concerned about the welfare of the enemy to effectively wage war and ultimately protect this country. Let me be clear, the enemy is anyone, man, woman or child who harbors, has knowledge of, etc... the goings on of enemy combatants, soldiers, terrorist,etc... There is no distinction between them, yet we allow our politicians to wage our wars and thus we are left with a never ending cycle of threats as we tip toe around the battlefield, reading Miranda rights to every Arab we think is a threat and damn near having to get our heads blown off before we can return fire. Has Japan been a problem since WW2 or Germany, or Italy, etc... No, because we killed everthing and everyone in our path to achieve victory. This is how its done. And torture does work, don't let these fake CIA or intelligent guys on here tell you otherwise. Yes, it must be collaborated with other evidence, but there are extreme methods of torture short of death that are still being used right now that works to some extent and if we are torturing enemies of America, who cares? And yes, this film is dramatized, because quite frankly, the actual chain of events that led to OBL death are tedious and boring. Also, don't kid yourself, we had no intention of capturing this guy from minute 1. This was an execution order as it should have been, the only good thing this government has done correctly in quite some time.
false. We can't "win our wars" because we CHOOSE the wrong ones (yes, we CHOOSE these wars).
The coalition of allies easily won the 1st gulf war and swiftly accomplished the goal of expelling Iraq from Kuwait, because the goal was clear and justified.
We "lost" Vietnam, Iraq 2, and we're losing Afghanistan because frankly, nation building in a nation of people that don't want you there is hard...
Silly response. So Japan, Germany and Italy wanted us in their countries. They were happy that we bombed virtually every major structure and industry to dust? Please. Look at the problems we had in these countries after the WW2 was over. We had thousand of GI's murdered by these "friendly" nations. Keep trying to tell yourself that wars are won thru nation building, hearts and minds, etc... It's people like you that will keep us losing wars; whether or not they are justified is irrelevant to their eventual outcomes.
I wasn't necessarily discussing WWII, as that was not really a war of choice per se, and it's pretty obvious we "won" that one.
Every war effort the USA has engaged in SINCE WWII however (save perhaps the 1st gulf war) was a war of choice and primarily nation building exercises, which are notoriously difficult, nigh impossible, to "win" in any traditional sense.
I'm not. George W. Bush did when he got involved in TWO nation building exercises simultaneously.
No, it's not "people like me" that will keep us losing wars. It's people like Dick Cheney and the rest of the Neocons that get us involved in the wrong ones that will ensure we continue to "lose" ill conceived wars of choice and conquest...
After reading some of the comments here, I am glad I was not in the middle east and just happened to be brown and in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I know it is hard, but try to imagine that NOT ALL Muslims and arabs are terrorists. There are people there just like you and me that are just trying to live their lives in peace.
After the HUGE intelligence failure surrounding the Iraq war how can you be sure that we did not torture innocent people? You really think that they KNEW who they were in ALL cases?
The "detainees" were there BECAUSE WE PUT THEM THERE. They didn't walk up and say, " Hey I'm a terrorist."
Are you saying that it is okay because they are BROWN MUSLIMS not from America?
This film is the biggest farce of them all because it takes all the hate-filled ignorami out there and leads them by the nose down the road they all want to travel.
Just like George Bush, You all are searching for a problem to your solution. They made up their mind before they knew even if they had the right guy.
Bill....You sound like nobama, its always someone else fault not mine, i just inherited all these problems...
Bill Washington--please try to stop painting AMericans as the ONLY ones who use stereotypes and are prejudiced against people who don't look like them.
I lived in Mexico for a summer and in Nicaragua for another, and I got along FINE because I was short, had straight dark hair, and in those days (stupidly) TANNED. But I SAW the reactions to girls/women who were blond and blue, who were followed in the street, cat-called, whistled at, had nasty (and I mean that in the WORST possible way) comments made toward the, and were even pinched and fondled in public. Because they were 'assumed' to be American.
ONE, believe it or not, was a NATIVE Nican--who just happened to have an ancestor who was German.
My son, who has lived and worked in China for the last four years, is planning his exit strategy this year, because HE is tired of being CONSTANTLY hasseled because HE is tallish, and Blond and Blue eyed. The longer he has stayed, and the more fluent he has gotten in Chinese, the more he has realized how CONSTANT that has been.
And remember, AMONG the US troops in the middle east, MANY are (appearance wise) NOT too different from the locals--being of either Italian, or other Mediteranean lineage, or Hispanic, etc., and THEY get the nasty treatment because of the CLOTHES they wear.
Remember that Xenophobia (the Greek term for 'fear of strangers'), existed at a time when most of the 'strangers' were ALSO 'Greeks'.
Water boarding is a very mild form of torture. It is no worse than water skiing or surfing. I would rather be water boarded than burned with a propane torch. The tortures that the terrorists use on people are far worse. If water boarding saves American lives then use it.
You must be a terrible skier/surfer.
MORON, did you graduate the 8th grade?
LOL. No. Actually, I surf and ski pretty good. But, everyone takes a nose dive sometime.
When one uses a single ski a big wall of water completely covers your head for about 30 seconds. When a person snorkels, they are underwater for up to 2 minutes. When a person drops from 30ft into the water, they get a solid dose of water. So, this form of torture is not that bad. I would much rather be tortured by Americans than middle eastern terrorists.
...So if they are rich terrorists are they Perrier boarded?
"proposed techniques were considered too harsh even for terrorist" America you, your politicians and your laws are a joke!
SUSPECTED Terrorists...............SUSPECTED!!!!!!
hey billy "bad a$$" washington. here is my address come visit me
48 idlewild spur rd. oak grove, ky.
i will be waiting for you.
Nice trailer Against. Figures!!!!
Persuasion is a better method of getting detainees to cooperate according to many in the field of intelligence. Torturing, I believe, is a way of venting off our anger and disgust at their heinous acts and we become the hunted. If you embrace torture, then you must relinquish any right to protest when our enemies do it to our guys, whether it comes from Vietnamese, Chinese, North Korean, Japanese, German, Iraqis, Iranians,Yemeni, Saudis, Palestinian, Somali....you get my point
Agreed and as a former operator I accepted this as a very distinct possiblity along with death if I were to ever get caught. You live by the sword you die by the sword. There are no rule books for waging war and taking lives. AND, torture is peruasion.
Telephone operator?
I'm sorry Yhbua, but I'd much rather be waterboarded by Americans than beheaded by the Taliban or Al Qaeda.
There are indeed rules for waging war, Shawn.
911 was perpetrated by false flag mongers to start a war for profit...as always. The elite should be tortured to confess their crimes against humanity. Bilderburgs, illuminati, jewish elite, global bankers...a game, a very profitable deadly game. SHEEPLES wake up.
You too should be subject to harsh torture technics for bringing drug induced conspiracy theories into the conversation.
Please, go back to sleep.
What's a "Bilderburg"? Is it something like a Bieber?
9/11/2001 is a date, of the greatest infamy. Only the truly ignorant do not recognize that it was a mass murder which went uninvestigated by anybody with subpoena power, witness protection power, and the security clearances necessary to compel testimony from people like George Tenet, Dov Zakheim, and Richard Myers. Let alone Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. If you can't recognize a whitewash when it is perpetrated upon you, and then pointed out to you, you don't deserve to be saved when the correction program is enacted. The sheeple will wish they had paid attention.
Kill em all! That is their plan for us!