The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

And yes, Flippy, I just listed some prominent dems....my point wasn't the specific people, but simply trying to point out that there were people on left side of the aisle that certainly knew and didn't speak up until it was to their political advantage to do so.

A point I wouldn't have argued with at all.

So, just to be clear, there aren't actually any Democrats you feel should be waterboarded, right?

To my understanding, the reason that waterboarding is part of military training is to prepare soldiers in case they are ever captured and waterboarded. So, yes, in a sense, SERE training involves torturing recruits. I presume that the exposure to these techniques is relatively brief, done with full disclosure beforehand, and with careful attention to making sure no one is truly harmed. Emerging information seems to indicate that our detainees underwent endless hours of the procedure, in one case over one hundred times in a month. We don't yet know what, if any, useful information was obtained by these means, but indications are that conventional interrogation techniques have been far more effective.

If there really is a 24-style ticking bomb scenario that we avoided thanks to waterboarding, we should know about it. (Cheney insists there are documents that would vindicate the procedure - but even if they aren't released, surely there are people involved who could give us at least SOME information about this hitherto-unknown breakthrough in national security.)

I've got to go back onstage, but, as always, pleasure tossing the ideological volleyball around.