[QUOTE=Evil One]
People desperately trying to undermine the administration at any cost for any reason can also be a national security problem.
[/QUOTE]
Wrong, totally wrong, the national security was mishandled by going to bed with Chalabi, and one important piece to convince the American people to go into Iraq was the false information obtained with rendering and torture to find a connection with Al Qaeda and Saddam.
Torture sure did work, but for the administration to obtain what they wished to find.
Only if a government had great intelligence gathering and accepted oversight, then I would consider torture under special circumstances; since we have neither good intelligence nor oversight of the current administration accepting their say so, regarding torture in this mishandled war, is only for ignorant Koll-aid drinkers.
[QUOTE=Evil One]
People desperately trying to undermine the administration at any cost for any reason can also be a national security problem.
[/QUOTE]
By the arguments you’ve given earlier, this statement makes me feel like you want to chop the administration’s opposition’s fingers off too. Please clarify.
I also note you’ve failed to answer my other questions about the basis of your fear, and exactly which members of society of which you want to chop the fingers. Is it the ones who are likely to threaten you, or the ones who are antagonistic toward you, but are very unlikely to damage you?
[QUOTE=jjimm]
By the arguments you’ve given earlier, this statement makes me feel like you want to chop the administration’s opposition’s fingers off too. Please clarify.
I don’t. It would make it easier for you if I did feel that way, but please don’t jump to conclusions.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=jjimm]
I also note you’ve failed to answer my other questions about the basis of your fear, and exactly which members of society of which you want to chop the fingers. Is it the ones who are likely to threaten you, or the ones who are antagonistic toward you, but are very unlikely to damage you?
[/QUOTE]
I have already answered your questions once. Apparently you plan to continue to ask until I tell you what you want to hear.
Forgive the morbid curiosity, but what do you suppose are their motives? An urgent desire to submit to our new Islamo-Facist Overlords? A keen need to see their daughters rendered into kitchen slaves and breeding units? Or do you imagine a more general, less specific craving to see America degraded and destroyed, by whatever means?
This sort of comic-book portrayal of your political irritants is kinda weak, but if you’re going to insist, how about Dick Cheney as The Penguin?
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Forgive the morbid curiosity, but what do you suppose are their motives? An urgent desire to submit to our new Islamo-Facist Overlords? A keen need to see their daughters rendered into kitchen slaves and breeding units? Or do you imagine a more general, less specific craving to see America degraded and destroyed, by whatever means?
[/QUOTE]
I think they are blinded by the desire for power and caught up in the toxic partisanship that’s been created by both sides. I also think that the further left you are, the more naive you are in general, so that certainly hooks Pelosi up in that particular net.
[QUOTE=Evil One]
I think they are blinded by the desire for power and caught up in the toxic partisanship that’s been created by both sides.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I can’t imagine how killing tens of thousands of people and torturing people could make the left hostile to the right. How unreasonable of them.
Or in other words, the problem with the left is that they aren’t nearly partisan enough. The Republicans have become downright demonic, and should be treated as such.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Yeah, good thing the government is in the hands of hard-nosed and realistic men, not given to fantasy.
Hows that working out for you?
[/QUOTE]
As far as preventing terrorist attacks with the assistance of information gained from people that have been subjected to “torture”? Pretty well so far.
The Republicans are going to pound this issue for the next five weeks. The Democrats in the House and Senate walked right into the trap by voting against the surveillance and interrogation programs. We’ll see how that works out for them.
C’mon, he doesn’t have the names yet. But if the damned restrictive board policies against torturing moderators were relaxed, he could get them for you and post them by next week.
[QUOTE=Evil One]
As far as preventing terrorist attacks with the assistance of information gained from people that have been subjected to “torture”? Pretty well so far.
[/quote]
Ah, “torture” with quotes, like what we do isn’t really torture. People have died, been crippled or gone insane under our kind treatment. It’s the real thing.
Nor do I care if it has prevented attacks, nor to I believe it has, nor do I believe the Bush Administration has any intention of preventing terrorism. Terrorist attacks are to it’s benefit, after all.
[QUOTE=Evil One]
The Democrats in the House and Senate walked right into the trap by voting against the surveillance and interrogation programs. We’ll see how that works out for them.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, because caving in to everything the Republicans want and turning into Republicans Lite has done so well for them in the past.
[QUOTE=Evil One]
As far as preventing terrorist attacks with the assistance of information gained from people that have been subjected to “torture”?
[/quote]
The Administration’s claims to the contrary, I don’t believe for a moment that we’ve actually prevented any terrorist attacks with torture-obtained information.
Why? Because with the Administration’s history of shameless attention-whoring, if they did gleam something from “harsh interrogation” techniques that allowed them to prevent a major terrorist attack, it’d be trumpeted from the front pages of the Drudge Report, the NY Post, and Fox News within 30 seconds of Dick Cheney authorizing the leak.
And personally, I find Evil One’s continued attempts to defend such amoral behavior in various forms of “national security” to be predictably depressing. All it takes is a scary bogeyman to make you gladly surrender the principles the nation was founded on, eh?
[QUOTE=Evil One]
Let another major terrorist attack happen and see which group takes it in the shorts for at least a decade.
[/QUOTE]
Somehow, I’m guessing it’ll be the party that controlled the White House and both houses of Congress during the attack and the years leading up to it. You really think a major terrorist attack at this point is going to make your party look better? All it’ll do is highlight the craven power brokering and total incompetence that has been the hallmark of the Republican party for the last fifteen years. If there’s another terrorist attack, it won’t be because of “obstructionist” Democrats, it will be because of the utter failure of the Republican party to govern this country.
[QUOTE=Evil One]
As far as preventing terrorist attacks with the assistance of information gained from people that have been subjected to “torture”? Pretty well so far…
[/QUOTE]
They lie to you with every other breath, for six years, while everything they touch turns to shit. And then they tell you that they are doing a truly splendid job protecting you, but they can’t tell you about it, 'cause its a secret, but you should believe them because when have they ever lied to you?
And you buy it. The Leader says it, you believe it, and that settles it.
And just to cap it all off, you say its the left that is naive.