And you obviously get your ideas about the effectiveness of torture from watching 24 rather than from reading what experts on interrogation say about it: that it is simply not a reliable or effective means of extracting useful information. But I can see how it appeals to the blood-lust of troglodytes.
So YOU are an expert on this subject heh?
I said nothing that would suggest to anyone but a muddle-headed boob that I meant anything of the sort. I said that one should base one's judgments on what experts say rather than on television fiction. I may have erred in taking
24 to be your source of "information," but the rest of your post proves that I was not wrong in making a low estimate of your knowledge and your reasoning ability.
Whether some see it as an effective means or not is not the issue.
Indeed; the issue, or rather
an issue, is not whether anyone sees it as an effective means or not but whether it
is an effective means or not. And there is a consensus among people who have performed interrogations and have systematically studied the results of interrogation practices that torture is not an effective means of obtaining reliable information. Now, of course, if you want to have your head firmly stuck up your arse you can stick to the opinions that appeal to your prejudices and emotions and disregard the arguments of experts. But the rest of your post indicates that you don't even care about whether the experts are right or not.
The issue remains that Bush saw it as a Legal means to gather information in order to protect us. The fact is, if Bush waterboarded and it led to breaking up a nuclear attack, then no one would be saying a damn thing about it. But because the details of this are classified, the rabbid left is using everything they can to bury Bush and the Republicans in order to solidify power.
I did not even raise the question whether torture is legitimate on ethical grounds, since it is obvious that that is the kind of thing about which you would not care a fig. I therefore put the argument in terms of effectiveness, as I thought that even someone as depraved as you would see the force of doubt raised on that point. But no. You think that the effectiveness of torture is irrelevant. You hold that the president is justified in torturing people regardless of whether doing so is an effective and necessary means to extract information necessary for protecting the country. All that matters, according to you, is that the president
thinks that it is a legal means to gather information in order to protect us. You do not say that it matters whether it
is legal; only whether the president
thinks it is. You also do not say that it matters that it is an
effective way of obtaining such information -- you expressly deny that that matters; you say that what matters is only that it is
a way of obtaining information.
Your position is absurd. For one thing, torture
is illegal, and Bush and Cheney have always admitted that it is; they just insist that when
we do waterboarding and other treatments that have destroyed and killed some people, it's not torture; which is like saying that murder is illegal but when
I intentionally kill innocent people it's not murder. For another thing, your speculation that waterboarding may have gotten us information that prevented a nuclear attack presupposes exactly the assumption that you said was irrelevant, namely that torture is an effective means of obtaining reliable information. Finally, it shows how desperate you are that, having no facts to support your case, you have to rest it on pure and baseless speculation about what
might have happened.
This is nothing but a witchhunt driven by the media and far left pundits and polititians.
No, a witch hunt is a hunt for an imaginary malefactor in which real people are the victims: that is the point of the metaphor. Bush and Cheney have admitted to authorizing what amounts to torture, though they deny it that name. There is no question that it has gone on, and that they are ultimately responsible for it. They are not imaginary malefactors but real ones.
If we are one day attacked and we come to find out that it may have been prevented had we obtain information using extreme coersion, and we did not, then that president should be impeached immediately for surrending to the geneva convention instaed of the oath of office...to protect the american people.
The fact that Bush is being treated like a criminal for doing whatever it takes to ensure our safety is sick and demented. I think exteme coersion should be an Ace in the whole that all US presidents have in cases where there is a potential immenant threat against US citizens. Fuck International law, Fuck the Geneva convention, Fuck it all. Because when push comes to shove, protecting US citizens against foreign attack is job #1.
Fuck yourself while you're at it. Your whole argument is founded on fantasy -- the idea that torture is "what it takes."