Comments on: No Legal Immunity for Clearly Illegal Acts

By: Jack Walts

Jack Walts — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:34:34 +0000

Unlike many of you, and your opinion is valued, I served in battle and was given the choice to shoot unarmed women and children, or not. No one would have prosecuted me as it was in the heat of battle. Bullets were passing through my aircraft from other guns. Two things kept me from killing helpless people, the Geneva Convention, and my own integrity. I’ve never been sorry to have stayed my trigger finger. Unlawful orders are just that, we should never cross the line. And once we shatter our integrity, like a fine wine goblet, it can never be repaired.

Argue as you will, I never killed or tortured anyone even though my very life was in danger as well as the lives of my crew. When you amass my credentials, credentials earned in the heat of battle, come talk to me.

By: Kathy

Kathy — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:16:56 +0000

Do you believe Stress Positions and sleep deprivation are torture?? How about a slap in the face or putting a bug in their cell?? Yes to the first question, and you are not describing those actions accurately to the second question. The larger point about defining torture, however, is the one Andrew Sullivan made today, and I'll quote him:

What defines torture is not this or that specific technique. We could spend hours poring through the countless ways in which human beings have devised to torture defenseless captives over the centuries. What defines torture is applying sufficiently severe mental or physical pain or suffering to force a victim to say anything to make it stop. In terms of time, you can go from the 15 seconds of waterboarding or electrocution to the days, weeks and months of Chinese water-torture, or days and weeks of sleep deprivation. The point is to break people.

By: booogiemann

booogiemann — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:42:29 +0000

Kathy: Does it bother you that Democrats approved these techniques, were briefed dozens of times on this issue and in some cases asked if they could do more?? Seems in 2009 Democrats have made an about face from their position in 02′-03′ …..

Here’s how General Hayden thinks Obama’s policy will affect CIA Ops;
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=4479696&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/fns/

By: booogiemann

booogiemann — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:29:34 +0000

Kathy, yea I know they are not new and have been used in various forms throughout history. Promoting the success of this latest form of Psych Ops in the USA started for me when … do you remember when Manuel Noriega was captured and there was all this hubub about playing Loud Rock Music to get him out?? Anyway, that’s what I was referring to. Since then there’s been all this development and use of “Non-Lethal” means throughout Law Enforcement and the Military. Loud Music or noises, bean bag guns, stun guns, “Smart” weaponry, pulse guns, etc. continue this effort.

Do you believe Stress Positions and sleep deprivation are torture?? How about a slap in the face or putting a bug in their cell??

Seems to be a lot of outrage about these techniques. Which ones do you consider Torture and which are acceptable??

By: Kathy

Kathy — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:19:27 +0000

Boogie,

There is nothing at all new about the use of sleep deprivation and stress positioning as torture techniques. Both were used by the Nazis, by the Soviet Union, by North Korea, and by many other regimes the U.S. used to consider human rights violators.

By: Booogie-Mann

Booogie-Mann — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:26:33 +0000

Seems the Left is more concerned about interrupting the sleep cycle of Terrorists, than protecting American lives. Here is a more sane interpretation of Obama’s release of these memo’s;

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993446103128041.html

By: Booogie-Mann

Booogie-Mann — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:53:33 +0000

In the past Psycological Ops were the rave, the new medium for interrogation without permanent harm nor physical injury. Playing loud music, sleep deprivation, stress positions … now apparently all these techniques are to be labeled “torture” and terrorists are to be interrogated as if they just robbed the 7-11.

I really see no comparison between humiliation, wearing women’s underwear or being hooded naked to the horriffic act of butchering a Human Being by slitting their throat, letting them bleed and scream, then slowly hacking off their head. Anyone see the Al Queda Beheading Video’s here?? Prisoners in Gitmo were responsible for beheadings of American’s in Iraq, yet the NY Times and this Blog lament the fact that they were slapped in the face.

George Tenant is on record saying “actionable intelligence” was wrought from Gitmo interrogations, plots were foiled, yet here we’re crying that a terrorist was slapped in the face or had a bug put in his cell. This is NOT torture people !!

We are slitting our own throats without the help of Al Qaeda ….