Sarissa wrote:
People ignore risk, but when the event occurs they look for someone to blame and want them bbq. The methods aren't pleasant, but they do yield results. After the lambasting the intel agencies received after 9/11 I'm not at all surprised they pulled everything they could out of their toolbox to avoid another incident.
The intelligence failure was a failure with the intelligence, it was a failure with how it was disseminated. The majority of this failure lies with the politicization, and subsequent polarization of the intel community. If you are where I think you are, Sarissa, you should be familiar with that by now.
Drajeck wrote:
It is possible that the time frame to do this would make the information garnered less useful, but in this case, any beneficial knowledge is worth the act if it stays within these boundaries imo.
The knowledge gained is a minor point. The major point, that you missed, is that the cost is too high. We are sacrificing our entire high ground here.
Drajeck wrote:
You want to label prudence as fear mongering just to make it sounds absurd and right wing fanatical.
Because it IS absurd. Put it into perspective. You might as well be a South Park character screaming "Dey tuuukk ourrr joooooobbbsss!", because it's equivalent.
Drajeck wrote:
I say we cannot afford it because every life is precious and it is this government’s job to do everything in its power to protect those lives. I don't mean the country will collapse or that it will in any way inconvenience YOU, but all the dead people might not be so keen on it.
Two points. One, I won't quibble over that being the government's job according to the framers, so I'll stick to the point. The key words in your statement are "do everything
in its power" It's NOT in the government's power to torture. Two, the dead people may not be keen on dying (no shit, who is?). What about the LIVING people, of which there are far more, who have to watch their rights degrade, watching torture occur and the suspension of habeas corpus. I'm sorry, but the revolutionaries who fought, and also died, for this country thought those rights were worth dying for. You rhetoric erases that. The people who died, didn't die defending our rights exactly, but they did die with them intact. And frankly, given the choice, I'd be happy to do the same. That's a true patriot. Not the asshole cheering as we kick the shit out of the brown people while putting a ribbon on the bumper of their F-150.
Drajeck wrote:
I agree that waterboarding is torture, I also think torture is acceptable on a convicted terrorist. They do not get the the benefit of having a country (the geneva conventions of prisoners) and the benefit of not having a country (no one to negotiate with, no country to declare war on etc). They are taking advantages from both sides.
I will go so far as to say I am in favor of taking organs from convicted terrorists and giving them to people in need on the donor list. The only issue I have is how do you properly convict someone to insure they get a fair trial and are not railroaded by some political agenda (ie. the McCarthy era). I don't know how to insure that doesn't happen, which is why the whole organ thing is hypothetical, since I can't guarantee that only the truly guilty will be convicted, but that is how little regard I would have for their lives if I could have such proof.
Great, then YOU are a traitor to your country and all that we've stood for. Be very careful what you wish for. You may get it, to the detriment of us all. And that's the REAL danger to this country, not the crazy arabs who can barely put together functional IED's in their own country.