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Little-Acorn
04-29-2009, 06:38 PM
Pretty scary stuff. As the author says, our prestige throughout the world must be degraded by these revelations:

They thought we were serious, but now they know we're not.

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http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=96542

Muslims: 'We do that on first dates'

by Ann Coulter

Posted: April 29, 2009
5:36 pm Eastern

Without any pretense of an argument, which liberals are neurologically incapable of, the mainstream media are now asserting that our wussy interrogation techniques at Guantanamo constituted "torture" and have irreparably harmed America's image abroad.

Only the second of those alleged facts is true: The president's release of the Department of Justice interrogation memos undoubtedly hurt America's image abroad, as we are snickered at in capitals around the world, where they know what real torture is. The Arabs surely view these memos as a pack of lies. What about the pills Americans have to turn us gay?

The techniques used against the most stalwart al-Qaida members, such as Abu Zubaydah, included one terrifying procedure referred to as "the attention grasp." As described in horrifying detail in the Justice Department memo, the "attention grasp" consisted of:

"(G)rasping the individual with both hands, one hand on each side of the collar opening, in a controlled and quick motion. In the same motion as the grasp, the individual is drawn toward the interrogator."

The end.

There are rumors that Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney wanted to take away the interrogators' Altoids before they administered "the grasp," but Department of Justice lawyers deemed this too cruel.

Is Shariah law coming to a court near you? Get "Stealth Jihad" – Robert Spencer's expose about efforts to quietly establish the Muslim system in Amerca

And that's not all! As the torments were gradually increased, next up the interrogation ladder came "walling." This involves pushing the terrorist against a flexible wall, during which his "head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel that provides a C-collar effect to prevent whiplash."

People pay to have a lot rougher stuff done to them at Six Flags Great Adventure. Indeed, with plastic walls and soft neck collars, "walling" may be the world's first method of "torture" in which all the implements were made by Fisher-Price.

As the memo darkly notes, walling doesn't cause any pain, but is supposed to induce terror by making a "loud noise": "(T)he false wall is in part constructed to create a loud sound when the individual hits it, which will further shock and surprise." (!!!)

If you need a few minutes to compose yourself after being subjected to that horror, feel free to take a break from reading now. Sometimes a cold compress on the forehead is helpful, but don't let it drip or you might end up waterboarding yourself.

The CIA's interrogation techniques couldn't be more ridiculous if they were out of Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch:

Cardinal! Poke her with the soft cushions! ...

Hmm! She is made of harder stuff! Cardinal Fang! Fetch ... THE COMFY CHAIR!

So you think you are strong because you can survive the soft cushions. Well, we shall see. Biggles! Put her in the Comfy Chair! ...

Now – you will stay in the Comfy Chair until lunchtime, with only a cup of coffee at 11.

Further up the torture ladder – from Guantanamo, not Monty Python – comes the "insult slap," which is designed to be virtually painless, but involves the interrogator invading "the individual's personal space."

If that doesn't work, the interrogator shows up the next day wearing the same outfit as the terrorist. (Awkward.)

I will spare you the gruesome details of the CIA's other comical interrogation techniques and leap directly to the penultimate "torture" in their arsenal: the caterpillar.

In this unspeakable brutality, a harmless caterpillar is placed in the terrorist's cell. Justice Department lawyers expressly denied the interrogators' request to trick the terrorist into believing the caterpillar was a "stinging insect."

Human rights groups have variously described being trapped in a cell with a live caterpillar as "brutal," "soul-wrenching" and, of course, "adorable."

If the terrorist manages to survive the non-stinging caterpillar maneuver – the most fiendish method of torture ever devised by the human mind that didn't involve being forced to watch "The View" – CIA interrogators had another sadistic trick up their sleeves.

I am not at liberty to divulge the details, except to mention the procedure's terror-inducing name: "the ladybug."

Finally, the most savage interrogation technique at Guantanamo was "waterboarding," which is only slightly rougher than the Comfy Chair.

Thousands of our troops are waterboarded every year as part of their training, but not until it was done to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – mastermind of the 9/11 attack on America – were liberal consciences shocked.

I think they were mostly shocked because they couldn't figure out how Joey Buttafuoco ended up in Guantanamo.

As non-uniformed combatants, all of the detainees at Guantanamo could have been summarily shot on the battlefield under the Laws of War.

Instead, we gave them comfy chairs, free lawyers, better food than is served in Afghani caves, prayer rugs, recreational activities and top-flight medical care – including one terrorist who was released, whereupon he rejoined the jihad against America, after being fitted for an expensive artificial leg at Guantanamo, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.

Only three terrorists – who could have been shot – were waterboarded. This is not nearly as bad as "snowboarding," which is known to cause massive buttocks pain and results in approximately 10 deaths per year.

Normal human beings – especially those who grew up with my older brother, Jimmy – can't read the interrogation memos without laughing.

At Al-Jazeera, they don't believe these interrogation memos are for real. Muslims look at them and say: THIS IS ALL THEY'RE DOING? We do that for practice. We do that to our friends.

But the New York Times is populated with people who can't believe they live in a country where people would put a caterpillar in a terrorist's cell.

jimnyc
04-29-2009, 07:13 PM
I just think it's disgusting that the Dems are releasing this information to the public in a time of war. I thought Obama was going to try and bring everyone together? Instead it's party before country, even if that means releasing national security issues in order to go "one up" against the other party. They should be doing this with private investigations, and then go after those who may have broken the law.

I'm not defending anyone who MAY have broken any laws, and I'm not stating that there shouldn't be any checks and balances about how we interrogate prisoners or terrorists. I just don't think it should be done on an international stage.

I'm getting more and more mentally anguished with the new administration. Can I possibly sue them for torturing me under the 'supreme law of the land'?

Kathianne
04-29-2009, 07:18 PM
I just think it's disgusting that the Dems are releasing this information to the public in a time of war. I thought Obama was going to try and bring everyone together? Instead it's party before country, even if that means releasing national security issues in order to go "one up" against the other party. They should be doing this with private investigations, and then go after those who may have broken the law.

I'm not defending anyone who MAY have broken any laws, and I'm not stating that there shouldn't be any checks and balances about how we interrogate prisoners or terrorists. I just don't think it should be done on an international stage.

I'm getting more and more mentally anguished with the new administration. Can I possibly sue them for torturing me under the 'supreme law of the land'?

Obama is just saying that waterboarding is torture, because many say it's so, even though it may have yielded information that protected us from planned attacks. He says there are other ways we could have attained the same information. Now he's quoting Churchill. It doesn't fit.

Kathianne
04-29-2009, 07:25 PM
With a follow up question, Obama basically admitted that indeed real information was gained by these techniques, but is sure that the information could have been gained by alternative measures, though can't say which. In any case, it's more important that we don't use them, in any case, meaning even if the unspecified alternatives wouldn't work, the cost would be worth it.

Thus, the Constitution, as he interprets it, may indeed be a suicide pact.

jimnyc
04-29-2009, 07:26 PM
Obama is just saying that waterboarding is torture, because many say it's so, even though it may have yielded information that protected us from planned attacks. He says there are other ways we could have attained the same information. Now he's quoting Churchill. It doesn't fit.

Even as CIC, Obama has no standing in declaring whether or not waterboarding is torture. I'm sure there are ways for him to put a halt to it while he is in office, but he cannot determine if it is torture or not based on our mutually signed treaties.

jimnyc
04-29-2009, 07:30 PM
With a follow up question, Obama basically admitted that indeed real information was gained by these techniques, but is sure that the information could have been gained by alternative measures, though can't say which. In any case, it's more important that we don't use them, in any case, meaning even if the unspecified alternatives wouldn't work, the cost would be worth it.

Thus, the Constitution, as he interprets it, may indeed be a suicide pact.

Until other techniques are PROVEN to work and gain information, stick with what works and saves lives.

I watched a guy waterboarded in a video the other day. They let the reporter hold a weight in his right hand, and they told him to drop it as soon as he wants them to stop. He dropped it REAL quick. Funny thing though, he was discussing his ordeal immediately, and then even laughing about it a few minutes later.

Had this reporter endured the type of torture our ILLEGAL COMBATANTS use on our men, he would have been dead by the time he could have been interviewed.

Can anyone point me to a study on waterboarding, citing examples of prisoners who have endured it who are suffering long term as a result?

Kathianne
04-29-2009, 07:38 PM
Until other techniques are PROVEN to work and gain information, stick with what works and saves lives.

I watched a guy waterboarded in a video the other day. They let the reporter hold a weight in his right hand, and they told him to drop it as soon as he wants them to stop. He dropped it REAL quick. Funny thing though, he was discussing his ordeal immediately, and then even laughing about it a few minutes later.

Had this reporter endured the type of torture our ILLEGAL COMBATANTS use on our men, he would have been dead by the time he could have been interviewed.

Can anyone point me to a study on waterboarding, citing examples of prisoners who have endured it who are suffering long term as a result?From coverage closer to the time, yet not in panic state. Not a 'right' source.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/how-the-cia-bro.html


How the CIA Broke the 9/11 Attacks Mastermind

September 13, 2007 4:09 PM

When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was strapped down to the water-board, he felt humiliated -- not by the treatment but by the fact that a woman, a red-headed CIA supervisor, was allowed to witness the spectacle, a former intelligence officer told ABC News.

This story has been updated (see endnote).

The al Qaeda mastermind, known as KSM, stubbornly held out for about two minutes -- far longer than any of the other "high-value" terror targets who were subjected to the technique, the harshest from a list of six techniques approved for use by the CIA and Bush administration lawyers, sources said.

Then KSM started talking, in idiomatic English he learned as a high school foreign exchange student and polished at a North Carolina college in the 1980s, sources said.

THE BLOTTER RECOMMENDS

"It was an extraordinary amount of time for him to hold out," one former CIA officer told ABCNews.com. "A red-headed female supervisor was in the room when he was being water-boarded. It was humiliating to him. So he held out."

"Then he started talking, and he never stopped," this former officer said. KSM was never water-boarded again, and in hours and hours of conversation with his interrogators, often over a cup of tea, he poured out his soul and the murderous deeds he committed.

"He was sitting across the table from his interrogator, and he just blurted out, 'I killed Daniel Pearl. I killed him Hahal (slit his throat in a ritual fashion).' There was no water-boarding, no belly slapping; just two guys sitting across the table having a cup of tea."....

Little-Acorn
04-29-2009, 10:36 PM
When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was strapped down to the water-board, he felt humiliated -- not by the treatment but by the fact that a woman, a red-headed CIA supervisor, was allowed to witness the spectacle
Well, gee whiz. I guess Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has a problem. I guess that sometimes happens when you get captured by people just after you killed three thousand of them.

But I have a solution.

Perhaps Khalid Shiekh Mohammed should make war against some other country - one that doesn't have female intelligence supervisors. Would that assuage his feelings of humiliation?

If not, maybe he should just give up mass murder entirely.

Sound like a plan?

The United States would be happy to do anything it can to help him along the path and keep him from being humiliated. We wouldn't want to be unfair, would we?