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EducateWorthington.org

The 912 Project - Glenn Beck

912 Group of Central Ohio

Please let me know if you'd like your link added

Everyone has an agenda.  They don't spend 30+ years over their life side stepping land mines to just ride of into the sunset.  I don't trust any of them.  A true soldier wouldn't be in front of the camera.  Those that are in front of the camera are looking for $$$

As a 3-star general Sanchez made almost $14,000/month in base pay before taxes. I doubt that he makes anything close to this now. I doubt that His tv appearances do not earn him any money.

If you will read Sanchez's book Wiser in Battle I doubt that you would make this claim about him.


Modified: 
You general attitude

The view that all generals are untrustworthy is just wishy washy -- and bogus.

Generals, like everyone else want promotion and don't want to make unnecessary waves.

But if two generals disagree -- one says x and one says not-x, one of them is telling the truth and one of them is sticking his neck out and making waves.

"They don't spend 30+ years over their life side stepping land mines to just ride of into the sunset."

When chosen to investigate the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison General Taguba  knew exactly what Rumsfeld and the army wanted -- a whitewash.


Why didn't the army pick a Westpoint lawyer -- someone who took legal principles and oaths to duty seriously? They didn't want that sort doing investigations into torture and abuse.

Taguba knew his report wasn't good for his career and it wasn't -- Within months, he was demoted from 3 star to 2 star general and told to retire.

When a general sticks his head up -- and speaks out -- he's likely to get clobbered.

Your argument is simply bogus.



You don't have any evidence that these generals are untrustworthy so you characterize the whole class of them as dishonest and conclude that the particular ones must be too.

You have to do better than this.

[A former Guantanamo Bay inmate is leading the fight against U.S. Marines in Afghanistan]

A former Guantanamo Bay inmate is leading the fight against U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed to FOX News on Tuesday.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/07/gitmo-inmate-leading-fight-helmand/

"Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." ~ George Orwell

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=108184

Rumsfeld: Without Info From Waterboarding We Would Not Have Killed Osama Bin Laden

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/qgfwQdFkoBM&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/qgfwQdFkoBM&rel=0</a>

http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/05/rumsfeld-without-info-from-waterboarding-we-would-not-have-killed-osama-bin-laden-video/?utm_source=co2hog

=======================================

CIA chief: Waterboarding aided bin Laden raid

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42880435/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

I realize that discussion of political issues is rare on this board – at least any discussion of opposing views.

But I will offer an opposing view, a view that I am willing to amend or revise if you can give me good reasons for thinking that they are mistaken.

My prima facie view is that torture presents a moral problem.  Ceteris paribus, it is simply morally wrong to torture people.

Now if the information is important enough and it can be shown (through empirical means) that torture is an effective method of obtaining important information that I would be willing to either revise my opinion of the morality of torture or attach a codicil to it (a ceteris paribus clause http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceteris_paribus) permitting torture in extreme circumstances.

The hysterics of Bill O’Really aside, the fact is that there is no evidence supporting the claim that torture is an effective method of obtaining important information.

This is from the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/may/05/torture-and-osama-bin-laden
Donald Rumsfeld himself had this to say on Monday: "It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantánamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding."

Meanwhile, asked about whether waterboarding played a role in finding Bin Laden, John Brennan – counter-terrorism adviser to Obama and, it's worth remembering, a key figure in the CIA under Bush – replied: "Not to my knowledge. The information that was collected over the course of nine years or so came from many different sources: human sources, technical sources, as well as sources that detainees provided. It was something as a result of the painstaking work that the analysts did. They pieced it all together that lead us to the compound last year and resulted in the very successful operation [on] Sunday."

While AP carries this information from former intelligence officials: "[Khalid Sheikh] Mohammed did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic."

Second, intelligence-gathering is never a simple case of A to B. The information leading to Bin Laden will have been drawn together from a myriad of sources – among those that have been pointed to so far are phone taps and, according to the White House, "Pakistani co-operation". A former CIA operative quoted by the BBC goes still further: "Intelligence agencies like the CIA and the US military will simply put out disinformation to protect the real sources, which could have been anything from intercepts to the Pakistani government itself."

And third, a key problem with torture is that it produces an impenetrable mix of falsehood as well as truth. People will say anything to make it stop – take, for instance, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, tortured into claiming a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Even assuming "good" torture evidence really did lead to Bin Laden, was this really worth the consequences of the "bad" torture evidence weighed in the lives of Iraqi civilians and coalition soldiers?

[We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money. --Ronald ReaganAl Gore didn't invent the internet, he invented global warmingThe welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants - CamusThe person who advocates government planning of the economy always assumes that it is his plan that will be put into effect. --Hayek]

The Guantánamo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle

Do we really support this?  Quickly after 9/11, Afghans began opportunistic and started turning in innocent people for bounty.  Yes, the may not be moral, but $5,000 is a bit of money to a person in the third world country holding grudges.

Ex-CIAer Jose Rodriguez Schools Andrea Mitchell: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Aren't Torture

Andrea Mitchell on the MSNBC program bearing her name Tuesday twice referred to "enhanced interrogation techniques" as "torture."

The second time, Jose Rodriguez, the former director of the CIA's National Clandestine Services, set the record straight (video follows with transcript and commentary):

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/jose-rodriguez-schools-andrea-mitchell-enhanced-interrogation-techniques-should-not-be-equated-torture

ANDREA MITCHELL, HOST: Was the decades-long hunt for Osama bin Laden the result of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, otherwise known as torture approved by the Bush-Cheney White House and later outlawed by President Obama?

Jose Rodriguez had the key role in charge of the CIA’s Clandestine Services for years, a job that put him in charge of all covert operations against suspected terrorists, an effort that included the use of enhanced interrogation techniques and renditions – shipping suspects to black sites in countries that did use torture. He also acknowledges destroying tapes of CIA interrogations.

Jose Rodriguez has written a new book about all of that called “Hard Measures,” and he joins me now from New York.

Towards the end of the segment, Mitchell made this comparison again:

MITCHELL: But do you have any second thoughts about the enhanced interrogation techniques which are otherwise known as torture?

JOSE RODRIGUEZ: I have no second thoughts, and they should not be equated with torture. And that is a myth that has gone on for too long, and one of the reasons why I wrote this book was to set the record straight. All of this was authorized by our government, was certified as legal by Justice, and was briefed to the Congress. So, you know, it’s pretty straightforward.

That warrants repeating: "All of this was authorized by our government, was certified as legal by Justice, and was briefed to the Congress."

Why is it that liberal media members like Mitchell refuse to acknowledge this?

Something else to consider is that irrespective of one's opinion of water boarding - which is actually used as part of the Air Force's Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE) program - there are other enhanced interrogation techniques that were authorized in March 2002.

ABCNews.com reported them in November 2005:

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.

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Does Mitchell view attention grabs and slaps as torture?

Even if she does, much of this is a smokescreen.

The real issue that's gotten the media's undies in a bunch since Rodriguez began his book tour is his view that such techniques led to the CIA discovering the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and therefore his execution.

Folks like Mitchell and her ilk want the victory lap on the one year anniversary of bin Laden's death to themselves and the 44th President who they helped put in office and want reelected.

The notion that anything George W. Bush and Dick Cheney authorized might have even remotely been a factor in what happened a year ago in Abbottabad, Pakistan, is galling them, and somehow they'll all feel better if the means to such information was torture.

In their twisted logic, then it wouldn't count.

As I've said for years, it takes a staggering amount of rationalizations to be a liberal these days - especially if you work for MSNBC.