If you could go back in time knowing what you know now would you:

[JaJae]

The CIA has confirmed that waterboarding the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, was directly responsible for preventing another 9/11 style attack in Los Angeles.

Let's play a game. Let's say you can time travel and you had the power to prevent the waterboarding from taking place. Would you?

Keep in mind they knew he had information regarding a pending attack and tried getting the information out of him previously and he wouldn't tell. All he kept saying was something along the lines of "Soon you'll find out." Knowing this information and that it would prevent the "Second Wave," would you save Khalid Sheik Mohammed from being waterboarded?

[David Octavius]

If I could go back in time I would tell the fuckers in Dade County to bring a big ass mangnifying glass when they vote....

JaJae - this is a pointless excercise. Yea maybe he would of never gave us info if we didn't waterboard his ass or maybe he would after some other techniques - we will never know.

9/11 is the new catchword to stop people from thinking for themselves - its stands as the new guardian for the phoney patriots to get their beliefs passed. Stuff like this is totally meaningless

[JaJae]

I think it's an interesting way to challenge your ideology. I've been on the fence regarding waterboarding and this is interesting. I knew the Bush administration has claimed in the past that waterboarding had protected us, but this is now the CIA saying the same thing. If you're against waterboarding I think it's an interesting question to ask yourself, would you prevent KSM from being waterboarded and condemn Americans to their death or would you make an exception in this instance? Sure there are other means of finding out the information. And they were tried. The CIA didn't know how long they had.

[Donkey®]

Oh....so the CIA said it....MUST be true.

[kinggovernor]

this is when you know that you really believe in what you say, those that reject this as as a false choice do so because they don't really believe what they say. They want it both ways.

That said, I still say no it wasn't worth it. I am not a bible quoter but I do believe this to be true:
What benefit will it be to you
if you gain the whole world
but lose your own soul?
(Mark 8:36)

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

this is when you know that you really believe in what you say, those that reject this as as a false choice do so because they don't really believe what they say. They want it both ways.

That said, I still say no it wasn't worth it. I am not a bible quoter but I do believe this to be true:
What benefit will it be to you
if you gain the whole world
but lose your own soul?
(Mark 8:36)

No, it makes it a false choice because we don't really know the truth about any of it.

[DosEquis]

Bullshit poll. Not participating.

[garbagemanlb]

I actually don't believe it is a 'fact' that any of the information gathered from waterboarding prevented another 9/11.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by garbagemanlb

I actually don't believe it is a 'fact' that any of the information gathered from waterboarding prevented another 9/11.

its interesting that many people accept that it happened because of the same report that talked about the results of the waterboarding. You can't have it both ways, either the report is credible or it isn't

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

its interesting that many people accept that it happened because of the same report that talked about the results of the waterboarding. You can't have it both ways, either the report is credible or it isn't

Which is more believable tho? That dinosaurs lived or that they drove cars?

[JDTC]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

Which is more believable tho? That dinosaurs lived or that they drove cars?

I think they rode bikes.

[HughRuss]

I'm sorry, but this is a completely false choice.

Why? Because crystal ball ruminations NEVER EVER EVER EVER end with decent results.

If you had the choice between killing 10 babies to save 1,000 adults, would you?

See how disgusting that hypothetical is? Same concept. How about the following:

If you knew that going back in time and killing Ike and JFK and LBJ and Nixon and Ford and Carter and Regan would prevent fuckfaces like KSM from ever gaining notoriety, would you?

[Scrum]

Of course the people who did the torturing are going to say it was necessary.



We shouldn't be torturing people even in this silly "ticking time bomb" scenario. We're the good guys. We take the moral high ground. Torture is what the bad guys do.

[Kytro]

I think it is a little bit of a false choice as there is little evidence that torture is effective.

Waterboarding Success Stories: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Library Tower | waterboarding.org

Which aspects of this plot could Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's waterboarding have revealed?

* We learned about Al Qaeda's interest in flying planes into buildings on September 11, 2001.

* We knew about Al Qaeda's use of shoe bombs from Richard Reid, captured in December 22, 2001.

* We knew about Jemaah Islamiyah at least since the Bali Bomb attack on October 12, 2002.

* The "key al Qaeda operative" and pilot for the plot, Zaini Zakari, was arrested by Malaysian authorities in December 2002.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on March 1, 2003 — after the plot was discovered, after the plot was "derailed", after the pilot of the plane was captured. Khaled Sheikh Mohammed could not have "provided valuable information and saved lives" when all aspects of the plot were well-known and the attack had been foiled prior to his capture.

[snjmom]

I'd say no to waterboarding. If we are going to torture for information, I'm not using some pansy-ass process like waterboarding. I'm pulling out fingernails, raping wives, killing children, nuking Mecca.

Either we are the stand-up, safe to-go-to good guys or we are just similar bastards trying to survive. I prefer to be successfull at one of them.

[Meshell]

Occam's razor suggests the CIA is over-emphasizing their worth and the effectiveness of torture. That's a simpler explanation than believing we learned nothing from 9/11. Or that Homeland Security, the FBI, the LA Police Department, the US Air Force, and airport security cannot do their job without the CIA.

[David Octavius]

Originally Posted by snjmom

raping wives, killing children, nuking Mecca.

Either we are the stand-up, safe to-go-to good guys

I pretty sure good guys don't rape wives, kill children and nuke a whole city...by the way, you know AQ is not HQ in Mecca right?

[HughRuss]

Originally Posted by snjmom

I'd say no to waterboarding. If we are going to torture for information, I'm not using some pansy-ass process like waterboarding. I'm pulling out fingernails, raping wives, killing children, nuking Mecca.

Either we are the stand-up, safe to-go-to good guys or we are just similar bastards trying to survive. I prefer to be successfull at one of them.

Have you ever been waterboarded?

Go ahead and be tilted backwards, chained to a board, with a mask over your head, and have your spouse pour water down your chest and on your face, in a dark cell, after hours worth of sleep deprivation.

And then you can go to raping prisoners' families, killing their children, and destroying otherwise innocent civilians' lives.

[SoFlaJDM]

Originally Posted by DosEquis

Bullshit poll. Not participating.

.

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by JaJae

The CIA has confirmed that waterboarding the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, was directly responsible for preventing another 9/11 style attack in Los Angeles.

Oh my. It looks like that may be false. Reports are that we broke that plot up in 2002 when KSM was captured and tortured in 2003.


The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan