Condoleezza Rice on "torture" / waterboarding. - Page 7

No there isn't. In casualties 9/11 was worse than Pearl Harbor. The people we are fighting are unorthodox, so the tactics and strategies employed must also be. Sure, we can be timid and politicize war, but that is how you lose wars.

Are you saying we should just give up and let them win because it suddenly is difficult

Anyways, I'm sure your stance would be to wage wars politically not militarily.

On May 14 2009 12:32 Licmyobelisk wrote:



Sure sir, please, I support the statement


@ xenixx, three more post and you're a zealot brethren :D

On May 14 2009 11:04 Xenixx wrote:


dont insult the intelligence of american soldiers chief, the same way your genius ass figured it out with pure imagination it was torture might be the same way a 'GI JOE' does

On May 14 2009 11:12 Aegraen wrote:


First off it's not a ticking time bomb scenario. Not every way to gather intelligence has another correlative to extract that information. For example, you can extract information from clandestine operations (known as HUMINT), where there are no other means to gather the same information. The same correlative can be drawn. How are you going to know about a plot that a select few know about? SIGINT? Nope. ELINT? Nope. MASINT? Nope. COMINT? about a one in a billion chance. IMINT? Nope. (Just for the record, my college major is in Intelligence Studies, and I work in an Intelligence field)

Also, I do not consider waterboarding torture, where you do. So, when I say torture, it implicitly means things like what the VC employed, Pol Pot, NKVD, SS, etc. McCain is as liberal as any democrat. He is a RINO! Proposing socialist-lite idea's and promoting near the same things as Obama makes you...not a liberal? Please, you are intelligent, you can look past the little designations next to their name right? The 2 witches of the NE are liberals also, I have no idea why the GOP lets them stay in the party or any RINOS for that matter. They should all be booted out!

Good vs Evil? Nope. Self-preservation? Yes. Do I think Islam is a fucked up religion and all the people wishing death to the US to die? Hell yes, and I'll do everything I can to see that day to fruition. That goes for anyone seeking to do physical harm to the US, or its citizens here and abroad. We went in and annihilated the Barbary Pirates when they were attacking our merchants, and citizens. This is no different.

There is no moral compass, and high ground when in war. You do what you have to do to survive. Every soldier knows this. You have most likely never served, so you don't understand.

You ignore the societal impacts of not using every means to achieve victory. Do I condone horrendous acts I call torture? Hell no. There is a line to be drawn, but waterboarding is not where that line is at. US Special Forces, get waterboarded. Do they get their legs broken, or bamboo shoved up their fingernails, or tied to horses and their tendons ripped, or malnurished, et al I could go on. No, no no because we in the military know what is, and is not torture, however subjective the word is.

Yes, I will brand anyone against using quote on quote 'torture' as a liberal because 90% posting are from Sweden (Socialists galore) and the rest have this hard on for some imaginary moral compass in times of war which are exactly how liberals are.

Yes, to me a liberal viewpoint is invalid. Taking over banks, private companies, branding conservatives extremists, trashing the constitution, yes, all invalid!

1776 American signing off.

On May 14 2009 14:01 Jibba wrote:

It's funny that you're speaking as if all military personal share a common perception of war and stance on the world. All of the military people (from the Army and Marines) I know are liberals and are very much concerned with ethics and the practice of war. The fact that you're so gung ho about it makes me wonder what you've actually done.

On May 14 2009 13:56 Jibba wrote:

American soldiers don't conduct torture, intelligence officers do, and there's a large and growing sentiment among the CIA, FBI and Pentagon services that it's not doing any good. The only thing in support of it is when the DoD says their methods stopped terrorist attacks, but there's no way to actually verify that it's true. You may look at it as a "use any means available" type of thing, except that torture damages the other routes for information gathering with undue mental stress, which is often what leads to the intelligence being poor.

Not only is it costly to investigate the shitty information, but it's extremely unlikely that the people captured (if they are indeed confirmed combatants) will know enough to be useful. AQ is much more sophisticated than people realize. Almost everyone who carried out 9/11 had no knowledge of what was taking place beyond their own specialized role (like the bank robbery in Dark Knight D: )so torturing them would have achieved very little, and the rule of thumb is that you have 24 hours once receiving the information to actually intercept an attack before the plan is completely changed. Even if you catch one cog and gather a minute detail (which then has to be verified), the plan can be adapted or abandoned very quickly.

Good intelligence comes from covert operations, not bullying and muscle. This raises completely different ethical problems (like whether it's justified for an infiltrated officer to kill in order to remain in cover) but at least there's fewer questions of effectiveness. Ethically, torture is obviously wrong. Taking a consequentialist approach, torture is also a very poor method.

On May 14 2009 14:13 Jibba wrote:
So what are you? Army Cpl? PO3? AF?

BTW, I'm sure this will piss you off, but fighting in a war doesn't teach you how to wage it. That's a much larger discussion, but I hope you understand that.

On May 14 2009 14:17 Aegraen wrote:


The 3 instances of waterboarding have been conducted on Top level Al'Qaeda, not lowly suicide bombers. You don't 'torture' those guys, you do the top levels. That is how we foiled a few plots.

DCI, still endorses the practice, because the IC knows it is effective, but you don't widespread use it. It's on select cases where you have the best chance of getting actionable intelligence. You do know Cheney was the CIA director in the 90s right? This fool we have as director now has never served one day in any intelligence capacity and it'll show, mark my words.

What do you mean you can't verify if it stopped it? You get intelligence, and you disseminate to the consumer. The consumer then acts on the intelligence. If the intelligence is accurate, there is a great chance we stopped it. It is very easy for an analyst and the consumer to tell if the intelligence was crucial and vital and stopped whatever plot. You're acting like the specific consumer requirement for the intelligence is spread out amongst some large spectrum. That is false. That is not how DCI, TARIA, FBI, NSA, and the other apparatus' work. We have something called PINO that gives general guidelines, and the consumer then dileneates the requirements down to the collector who disseminates it back to the consumer through the analyst.

You act as if we're uneducated neanderthals running around with our heads cut off not knowing if the intelligence we act upon is effective or not. Most in the community have their masters, and our analysts are the best in the world (At least, tactically, our strategic intelligence capabilities have severely diminished since the Cold War, sadly).

On May 14 2009 14:23 Aegraen wrote:


PO3, soon to be PO2 working on my masters in intelligence.

I wouldn't say that, at least not on a micro scale. Ingenuity is what the GI is known for. All you have to do is look at every war America waged, and it is the GI who has won it through ingenuity. Whether it was making makeshift metal components for shermans in the hedgerows of Normandy, to improvising in the streets of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, to cave crawlers in WW2 and Vietnam.

On a macro scale, you are correct in part. During the war, you don't have much chance to change your doctrine, however, afterwards analysing the outcome and battles, you can change your doctrines in specific terrain, etc. Learning through experience.

Doesn't piss me off at all. Now, if you support Obama, that does

On May 14 2009 15:08 Last Romantic wrote:
:> as an aside, I wonder how you think our President is doing.

On May 14 2009 13:56 Jibba wrote:

American soldiers don't conduct torture, intelligence officers do, and there's a large and growing sentiment among the CIA, FBI and Pentagon services that it's not doing any good. The only thing in support of it is when the DoD says their methods stopped terrorist attacks, but there's no way to actually verify that it's true. You may look at it as a "use any means available" type of thing, except that torture damages the other routes for information gathering with undue mental stress, which is often what leads to the intelligence being poor.

Not only is it costly to investigate the shitty information, but it's extremely unlikely that the people captured (if they are indeed confirmed combatants) will know enough to be useful. AQ is much more sophisticated than people realize. Almost everyone who carried out 9/11 had no knowledge of what was taking place beyond their own specialized role (like the bank robbery in Dark Knight D: )so torturing them would have achieved very little, and the rule of thumb is that you have 24 hours once receiving the information to actually intercept an attack before the plan is completely changed. Even if you catch one cog and gather a minute detail (which then has to be verified), the plan can be adapted or abandoned very quickly.

Good intelligence comes from covert operations, not bullying and muscle. This raises completely different ethical problems (like whether it's justified for an infiltrated officer to kill in order to remain in cover) but at least there's fewer questions of effectiveness. Ethically, torture is obviously wrong. Taking a consequentialist approach, torture is also a very poor method.

On May 14 2009 05:38 Aegraen wrote:


Dumb people are dumb.

Do you know those held at those facilities were ENEMY COMBATANTS. Now, my misinformed Hong Kongan (however, you wish to describe yourself), go read the Geneva Conventions on 1A) Enemy Combatants 2A) Torture/POW Treatment.

Every country, is legally allowed to 'execute' Enemy Combatants. They have zero rights, and zero rights under our Constitution, which is explicitly only for US Citizens. The Constitution is not a world Constitution, it is a US Constitution.

So, I say to you, fine sir; shove it up where the sun doesn't shine.

On May 14 2009 09:44 Xenixx wrote:


we've all been 'tortured' in the military liberal puss puss, i've never been through so much hazing, testosterone induced environments anywhere else

the mental stress is 'torture'

the physical stress is 'torture'