The Science of Torture

I see, so the only fictional character in the movie that evokes your interest, the only one you're fixated on, is a character who tortures people.


Got it, you think people who torture, are "compelling."

I have no problem acknowledging that fact, honestly.

happy jack wrote:

Artie60438 wrote:

Yeah,but you already admitted that he's allegedly based on a real person.

happy jack wrote:

One of the more compelling characters was the one based on the interrogator who used the enhanced interrogation techniques,

[b]I would not be at all surprised to learn that he is based on a real person or a composite of several real persons.
Would you?

I have no idea since I don't spend my time fantasizing about fictional characters. Btw,you still haven't answered any of Heretic's questions...

Heretic wrote:

Three questions: Which character and who was he based on? When did Panetta refer to said character? When did he say the intel was essential?

happy jack wrote:

edge540 wrote:

I see, so the only fictional character in the movie that evokes your interest, the only one you're fixated on, is a character who tortures people.


Got it, you think people who torture, are "compelling."

I have no problem acknowledging that fact, honestly.

This is what you claim I said:

edge540 wrote:

I see, so the only fictional character in the movie that evokes your interest, the only one you're fixated on, is a character who tortures people.

This is what I actually said:

happy jack wrote:

One of the more compelling characters was the one based on the interrogator ….

The difference between what I said and what you claim I said?
Quite a lot, actually.
What you said I said was a flat-out lie.

Make that:
I see, so the fictional character in the movie that evokes your interest, the one you're fixated on, is a character who tortures people.

Got it, you think people who torture, are "compelling."

I have no problem acknowledging that fact, honestly.

Like I said before, interesting.

happy jack wrote:

Fixated?
No, I don’t think so.
I kind of just mentioned it in passing.
You, on the other hand, seem to have latched onto it like Rosie O’Donnell on a pork chop.

Uh huh
I haven't seen the movie yet but I have read at least 15 reviews of the movie. Funny there is no mention in any of them about how "compelling" the torturer is in the movie. None of the people that I know who have seen the movie mentioned anything about the torturer being "compelling."
None, zip, nada.
You're the only one.

And BTW, you don't fuck with Rosie O'Donnell

I wrote:

Three questions: Which character and who was he based on? When did Panetta refer to said character? When did he say the intel was essential?

Predictably, they've gone unanswered, as the larger point of this thread has as well:

I wrote:

So even if it had provided key information (it didn't), and even if it had provided information we couldn't have gotten any other way (it most likely didn't, especially considering that we wouldn't have been distracted by Iraq without it), it's still a desperate cherry pick done to justify an unreliable program. And its no justification for it now anymore than it was two years ago.

Heretic wrote:

I wrote:

Three questions: Which character and who was he based on? When did Panetta refer to said character? When did he say the intel was essential?

Predictably, they've gone unanswered, as the larger point of this thread has as well:

Once again he ends up looking like an uninformed stooge.

I wrote:

So even if it had provided key information (it didn't), and even if it had provided information we couldn't have gotten any other way (it most likely didn't, especially considering that we wouldn't have been distracted by Iraq without it), it's still a desperate cherry pick done to justify an unreliable program. And its no justification for it now anymore than it was two years ago.

Here's what John McCain said about it...
John McCain: 'Zero Dark Thirty' Torture Depiction Is Wrong

Quote :

"Not only did the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed, it actually produced false and misleading information," McCain said in a speech on the Senate floor.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, backed up McCain's assessment that waterboarding of Mohammed did not produce the tip that led to bin Laden.

happy jack wrote:

Artie60438 wrote:

"Not only did the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed, it actually produced false and misleading information," McCain said in a speech on the Senate floor.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, backed up McCain's assessment that waterboarding of Mohammed did not produce the tip that led to bin Laden.

[b]I don’t know that Panetta was referencing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed when he made these statements.

Are you both blind and ignorant? Reread the post.

After you finish that,how about answering Heretic's questions.?

Heretic wrote:

Three questions: Which character and who was he based on? When did Panetta refer to said character? When did he say the intel was essential?

Artie60438 wrote:

Are you both blind and ignorant? Reread the post.

When he made these statements - pay attention.


”Yes, some of it came from some of the tactics that were used at that time, interrogation tactics that were used,” he admitted.
………
"Some of the detainees who provided useful information...had been subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques," he continued. "Whether those techniques were the 'only timely and effective way' to obtain such information is a matter of debate and cannot be established definitively."

What he is clearly saying is that useful information was obtained through “enhanced interrogation techniques”, and that there is no way to definitively establish that the same useful information could have or would have been obtained through other methods.
And there is no indication that these statements were in reference to Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

happy jack wrote:

pay attention.

I am. What I've noticed is you still have no answer to Heretic's questions.

Heretic wrote:

Three questions: Which character and who was he based on? When did Panetta refer to said character? When did he say the intel was essential?

The way I see it,you have 3 choices...
1)Answer his questions
2)Admit that you can't
3)Continue to act like the coward that you are by ignoring the repeated requests.

happy jack wrote:

Artie60438 wrote:

cowardly troll and uninformed stooge wrote:

Artie60438 wrote:

happy jack wrote:

pay attention.

I am. What I've noticed is you still have no answer to Heretic's questions.

Heretic wrote:

Three questions: Which character and who was he based on? When did Panetta refer to said character? When did he say the intel was essential?

The way I see it,you have 3 choices...
1)Answer his questions
2)Admit that you can't
3)Continue to act like the coward that you are by ignoring the repeated requests.

[b]There are still some questions outstanding that I've asked of you and you have yet to answer.
The way I see it,you have 3 choices...
1)Answer my questions
2)Admit that you can't
3)Continue to act like the coward that you are by ignoring the repeated requests.

Have you forgotten these exchanges already?
My, my.
Dishonest and senile.
Helluva combination.

Wow! Someone has accumulated quite the dossier Obsess about me much?

As to Sluggo's accusation.....I did share my idea with Scorpion and others. I chose not to share it with him in order to avoid an endless exchange about a hypothetical idea with a lazy troll that doesn't do any research and constantly ignores rebuttal facts that are presented to him.

As to the cowardly troll's latest temper tantrum,it's nothing more than his usual tactic of trying to take the discussion off track in order to dodge legitimate questions. Let me illustrate further....
Heretic's questions were posed on Mon Feb 18, 2013 11:15 am. 6 days later and still no answer Instead,Sluggo decides to resurrect an exchange with me that happened 5 months ago in another foolish attempt to avoid the responsibility of answering Heretic's legitimate questions.
Your move,Jacko

The only real question regarding your drudging up 2 yr old info I'm interested in seeing answered is ... what exactly is your point?

happy jack wrote:

Artie60438 wrote:

.
Your move,Jacko

[b]Actually, it’s your move, and has been for some time.
But you can’t answer the questions, can you?

What questions?

Artie60438 wrote:

Heretic's questions were posed on Mon Feb 18, 2013 11:15 am. 6 days later and still no answer Instead,Sluggo decides to resurrect an exchange with me that happened 5 months ago in another foolish attempt to avoid the responsibility of answering Heretic's legitimate questions.

village idiot wrote:

Is Heretic truly so desperately concerned about me answering his questions that he sent his eunuch slave boy to pester me by proxy?
(Just out of curiosity, what kind of costume does he make you wear?)

And right on schedule the board's nominee for dumbest man on the internet responds with his default tactic when cornered...attacking my manhood. Thanks for another cheap laugh at your expense

Oh,and btw,Heretic did note your inability to answer his questions
[quote]

Heretic wrote:

I wrote:

Three questions: Which character and who was he based on? When did Panetta refer to said character? When did he say the intel was essential?

Predictably, they've gone unanswered

happy jack wrote:

Artie60438 wrote:

I did share my idea with Scorpion and others. I chose not to share it with him in order to avoid an endless exchange about a hypothetical idea with a lazy troll that doesn't do any research and constantly ignores rebuttal facts that are presented to him.

Artie60438 wrote:

Heretic's questions were posed on Mon Feb 18, 2013 11:15 am. 6 days later and still no answer

[b]Seeing as how you answered the questions I asked of you not by giving me an answer, but rather by providing your answer to “Scorpion and others”, I have answered Heretic’s questions not by posting my answers on the board, but rather by sharing them with a guy in South Chicago who stands on the corner wearing two hats and screaming at passing cars.
So yes, I have answered Heretic’s questions.
I would say that makes us even.
Fair’s fair, right?

Looks like a win-win for me : The less interaction I have to have with you,the better. However,feel free to keep amusing me while further embarrassing yourself.

Torture, Lies and Hollywood

Quote :

By ALI H. SOUFAN

I WATCHED “Zero Dark Thirty” not as a former F.B.I. special agent who spent a decade chasing, interrogating and prosecuting top members of Al Qaeda but as someone who enjoys Hollywood movies. As a movie, I enjoyed it. As history, it’s bunk.

The film opens with the words “Based on Firsthand Accounts of Actual Events.” But the filmmakers immediately pass fiction off as history, when a character named Ammar is tortured and afterward, it’s implied, gives up information that leads to Osama bin Laden.

Ammar is a composite character who bears a strong resemblance to a real-life terrorist, Ammar al-Baluchi. In both the film and real life he was a relative of Bin Laden’s lieutenant, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But the C.I.A. has repeatedly said that only three detainees were ever waterboarded. The real Mr. Baluchi was not among them, and he didn’t give up information that led to Bin Laden.

In fact, torture led us away from Bin Laden. After Mr. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, he actually played down the importance of the courier who ultimately led us to Bin Laden. Numerous investigations, most recently a 6,300-page classified report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, have reached the same conclusion:
enhanced interrogation didn’t work. Portraying torture as effective risks misleading the next generation of Americans that one of our government’s greatest successes came about because of the efficacy of torture. It’s a disservice both to our history and our national security.

While filmmakers have the right to say what they want, government officials don’t have the right to covertly provide filmmakers with false information to promote their own interests. Providing selective information about a classified program means there is no free market of ideas, but a controlled market subject to manipulation. That’s an abuse of power.

John O. Brennan, a former C.I.A. official and now President Obama’s nominee to head the agency, recently testified that the classified report raised “serious questions” about information he received when he was the agency’s deputy executive director. Mr. Brennan said publicly what many of us — who were in interrogation rooms when the program was devised — have been warning about for years: senior officials, right up to the president himself, were misled about the enhanced interrogation program.

For instance, a 2005 Justice Department memo claimed that waterboarding led to the capture of the American-born Qaeda member Jose Padilla in 2003. Actually, he was arrested in 2002, months before waterboarding began, after an F.B.I. colleague and I got details about him from a terrorist named Abu Zubaydah. Because no one checked the dates, the canard about Mr. Padilla was repeated as truth.

When agents heard senior officials citing information we knew was false, we were barred from speaking out. After President George W. Bush gave a speech containing falsehoods in 2006 — I believe his subordinates lied to him — I was told by one of my superiors: “This is still classified. Just because the president is talking about it doesn’t mean that we can.”

Some of these memos, and reports pointing out their inaccuracies, have been declassified, but they are also heavily redacted. So are books on the subject, including my own.

Meanwhile, promoters of torture get to hoodwink journalists, authors and Hollywood producers while selectively declassifying material and providing false information that fits their narrative.

The creators of “Zero Dark Thirty” attempted to document the greatest global manhunt of our generation. But they did so without acknowledging that their “history” was based on dubious sources.

The filmmakers took the “firsthand accounts” of a few current and former officials with an agenda and amplified their message worldwide — suggesting to Americans in cinemas around the country, and regimes overseas, that torture is effective and helped lead to Bin Laden. There is no suggestion in the movie that another narrative exists.

Hollywood is primarily about entertainment. The moral responsibility for setting history straight, ensuring the public isn’t misled, and making sure mistakes aren’t repeated falls to Congress and the president. Yet the Senate report remains classified, and only those with security clearances, like Mr. Brennan, can read how the public was misled.

It’s the duty of the president and Congress to responsibly declassify the report — and the other documents that advocates of torture don’t want released.

That’s the only way to ensure that future generations won’t ever go down that dark and dangerous path again. As Senator John McCain has said, the Senate report “has the potential to set the record straight once and for all” and end “a stain on our country’s conscience.”

Once that’s done, it won’t be long before another Hollywood movie comes along to tell the real story about how America killed Bin Laden.

Ali H. Soufan is a former F.B.I. special agent who interrogated Qaeda detainees and the author of “The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda.”

Quote :

Portraying torture as effective risks misleading the next generation of Americans that one of our government’s greatest successes came about because of the efficacy of torture. It’s a disservice both to our history and our national security.

That bears repeating.