CIA seceretly holding Qaeda suspects

[toasty]

^^ it would appear that we have, in fact, been torturing prisoners for years and we haven't caught OBL yet, so I'm not sure that you could necessarily equate the two even if we do catch him.

i then say, torture the fuckers if we know they are in fact the bad guys.

This is reminiscent of the Salem witch trials. How do we know that they are, in fact, the bad guys before beginning the torture?

i'm not talking about prisoners, i'm talking about high ranking Qaeda officials.

That's a precarious line to try to draw. I wouldn't want to be the one to determine who gets tortured and who doesn't...

meanwhile, this budweiser is great!

On this point, we agree!

[EvenSteven]

What if by torturing a Qaeda terrorist, we found the location of Osama Bin Laden, or the location of the next attact and prevented it, or the location of hostages about to be beheaded?

i then say, torture the fuckers if we know they are in fact the bad guys.

i'm not talking about prisoners, i'm talking about high ranking Qaeda officials.

meanwhile, this budweiser is great!

[toasty]

Re: CIA seceretly holding Qaeda suspects

thoughts?

I think it is mindsets like this that has resulted in America having the worst reputation in the world that they have had in my lifetime.

I have no problem with aggressive interrogation tactics, and I would also note that because these folks are not American citizens, I am not even all that concerned about being detained indefinitely, without representation, etc.

But torture? We should not torture people, regardless of whether we're bound by the Geneva Convention, because we are part of a civilized society and should not drop to that level. Torture is for savages. We have to remain above such things to maintain any credibility in the world.

The abuse of prisoners at Abu Grhaib (sp?) is, in my opinion, largely responsible for the growing insurgency in Iraq. There are a lot more people over there that want to kill us now than there were before that happened. It will take generations for us to repair the damage that was done there...

[EvenSteven]

"The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is holding top al Qaeda suspects in a secret Jordanian jail where they are subjected to interrogation methods banned in the United States, an Israeli newspaper said on Wednesday"

"U.S. interrogators are known to threaten some detainees with shipping them off to Jordan if they don't cooperate," Scarborough said. "Like other Middle Eastern countries, Jordan uses physical means to coerce confessions and vital intelligence information."


i personally don't have a problem with this.

detain them illegally, torture them, kill them for all i care, as long as i can sit comfortably in my lazy boy and drink budweiser and watch baseball without worrying about a plane flying into my house.

thoughts?