Althouse: "But to suggest that this Senate report will really tip the scales when it comes to the United States’ enemies rallying support..."

December 9, 2014

"But to suggest that this Senate report will really tip the scales when it comes to the United States’ enemies rallying support..."

"... you have to believe that the following exchange is happening somewhere in the Middle East."

Intro to a dialog between "Abdul" and "Ahmed," imagined by international politics prof Dan Drezner.

36 comments:

MayBee said...: I love the idea of ISIS using these tactics against us.

Chained to a wall vs. beheading children

Surely they are going to think we are wimps; 12/9/14, 10:21 AM
Big Mike said...: I do like Drezner's user of the phrase "magical thinking."

Some conservative commentators assert that releasing the report today is carefully timed to overshadow Gruber's testimony in front of Issa's committee. If that really were true, one could only speculate what damaging news is timed for whenever Kerry does want to release it.; 12/9/14, 10:24 AM
khesanh0802 said...: Although I think this is largely a Feinstein ego trip, I have to agree that release will not significantly increase the enmity of the barbarians in the ME. As if they need any more excuses to cut off a few heads.

Perhaps the administration is afraid that they might actually have to issue ammunition to the embassy guards. I am sure the Marines would be happy to have a few willing, live targets to shoot at.

Perhaps the administration feels they need to get ahead of what ever effect the report might have so they can blame the Feinstein video, uh, report.; 12/9/14, 10:43 AM
Nonapod said...: I agree that this whole thing is really just a tempest in a teapot. A distraction at best. Are there any surprises in this report? Do we know anything truly new?; 12/9/14, 10:48 AM
MayBee said...: I'm guessing the Obama administration is saying they don't want this released because they don't want a report issued about them in 4 years.; 12/9/14, 10:53 AM
The Godfather said...: The article provides one really good reason not to issue the report:

"The report should be released as soon as possible for a very simple, bipartisan reason:

[Sen. Lindsey O.] Graham added that the extensive documentation could prevent a future administration from resorting to similar methods.

'At the end of the day, it is important not to repeat these things,' Graham said."

An action supported by Sen. Graham on these half-assed grounds is almost certainly wrong.; 12/9/14, 10:56 AM
garage mahal said...: We'll probably never know how many American lives were saved because the CIA forced a liquid nutrition slurry into a man's rectum. #heroes; 12/9/14, 11:01 AM
Hagar said...: I do not understand why releasing this is supposed to mean squat to the jihadists.

I do suspect that some people think it might mean something to the folks here at home, and it almost certainly will give NYT/WaPo & Co. something to write about now and to keep referring to in the future.
It's a NYC/Beltway thing.; 12/9/14, 11:01 AM
Hagar said...: I think the Bush administration was very wrong about this, but do not question that they honestly believed - and believe - that it was necessary.

But Garage, you, now ....; 12/9/14, 11:09 AM
Anonymous said...: It's better that they be gutted with bayonets, burned with white phosphorus, or dismembered by shrapnel than staining our hands with water-boarding. That will make it nobler and more virtuos; 12/9/14, 11:17 AM
cubanbob said...: Draw and quarter the Jihadi's and post the videos on Youtube. Screaming in agony Jihadi's is a good thing.; 12/9/14, 11:33 AM
FullMoon said...: Might give rioters in Berkley a second wind.; 12/9/14, 11:57 AM
machine said...: "Gee,who could have predicted that setting up special black sites to torture prisoners with Nazi and Communist techniques could lead to unraveling alliances with our Western democratic friends?"; 12/9/14, 12:26 PM
Hagar said...: Umm, machine,
What they did was torture, all right, but nowhere close to what the Nazi and various communist regimes have done. Not even the same universe.

And the people who are yelping the strongest about this, really should not be, considering their past and present?) relations with such regimes.; 12/9/14, 12:35 PM
The Drill SGT said...: khesanh0802 said...
Although I think this is largely a Feinstein ego trip, I have to agree that release will not significantly increase the enmity of the barbarians in the ME. As if they need any more excuses to cut off a few heads.

While I don't think that waterboarding is torture, having had it applied to me in 1970, I do think that release of the report naming countries that cooperated in rendition is going to cause both street level violent protests against the host countries and make it harder to gain support for our future intel operations.

In war, you do some pretty unpleasant things, not because they are fun, but because they are needed...

I do support the Congresses Oversight duty and if they want to release it, then own the result...; 12/9/14, 12:35 PM
garage mahal said...: Today would be a good day for Sean Hannity to finally get waterboarded as he promised, because waterboarding is no big deal.; 12/9/14, 12:40 PM
The Drill SGT said...: garage mahal said...
Today would be a good day for Sean Hannity to finally get waterboarded as he promised, because waterboarding is no big deal.

It is very unpleasant, and I suspect that it would be worse if you weren't sure that the guys with water weren't trying to kill you, but honestly, in the actual waterboarding, there isnt any room for cognitive thought on the part of the guy getting the water.
it's a primordial "fear of drowning" thing. and afterward, the cognition of "i'll do most anything not to get that again"; 12/9/14, 12:48 PM
Revenant said...: In war, you do some pretty unpleasant things, not because they are fun, but because they are needed.

If the last six years haven't convinced conservatives that "the government said it was needed" is insufficient proof that something was a good idea, I shudder to think of what might.

If it is necessary to torture people in order to save American lives, fine. But do so openly, and tell us who was saved and how. This "oh, secret potential victims were saved from secret attacks thanks to secret torture of secret people" shit is getting old.; 12/9/14, 12:51 PM
Unknown said...: The writer is a chauvinist and a bigot, imposing his own world view on people that he does not understand posing a his own perspective on one he cannot envision. A guy who in all likelihood despises religion is putting speech balloons on the people that cheered at the collapse of the world trade center and the loss of 3000 innocent lives, the people that rioted when cartoons featuring their religious icon were published.; 12/9/14, 12:53 PM
machine said...: "In 2003, Bush gave a speech at a UN event condemning torture and calling on other nations to investigate and prosecute torture allegations. The statement was so at odds with US practices that the CIA contacted the White House to make sure enhanced interrogation techniques were still okay"; 12/9/14, 1:01 PM
Drago said...: machine: "Gee,who could have predicted that setting up special black sites to torture prisoners with Nazi and Communist techniques could lead to unraveling alliances with our Western democratic friends?"

This is impossible.

If we employed the torture tactics employed by communist countries the lefties here would shut right the hell up about it.

Probably even laud us for it.; 12/9/14, 1:38 PM
Drago said...: BTW, Fidel Castro ordered homosexuals to be lobotomized.

Lefties: Not torture.

Of course, later on Fidel said he was "sorry" about this.

LOL

If Fidel showed up on the streets of any lefty enclave he would receive a standing ovation.

An extended standing ovation.; 12/9/14, 1:39 PM
Krumhorn said...: Yeah. Isn't it just like a freakin' leftie to get the conversation wrong?? It goes like this:

ABDUL: Ahmed, bro, let's go riot and storm the embassies. Our ideological friends in the Democrat party finally released their torture report. We can shout "Allah Akbar! Hands up, don't shoot", be real angry, and burn shit the bitch down.

AHMED: I'm with you, Abdul, and on the way, maybe we can pick up a big flat screen from the Radio Shack and some pork rinds and beer from the 7-11.

ABDUL and AHMEN: Allah akbar!!

- Krumhorn; 12/9/14, 1:41 PM
Krumhorn said...: What the lefties fail to grasp (because they are so painfully unaware and dishonest) is that the terrorists don't need anything other than the slenderest reed to justify looting and burning any more than those "peaceful protesters" do in Berkeley. It's all for show, and there is no requirement that there be any nexus with the truth.

It's sort of like blaming Benghazi on a YouTube video.

- Krumhorn; 12/9/14, 1:47 PM
Krumhorn said...: Today would be a good day for Sean Hannity to finally get waterboarded as he promised, because waterboarding is no big deal.

It is no fun at all, but it's most certainly NOT torture. For over 4 decades, every single American fighter pilot has been through SERE school and has been waterboarded in addition to other very unpleasant experiences.

For me, worse than the waterboarding, was being confined to a very small metal box in sweltering heat and humidity when some evil Squid CPO shoved a snake in there through a small hole right by my left hip. To put it mildly, I learned how I react to primordial fears.

However, torture is in a different class. You lefties love to conflate inhumanity with ordinary unpleasant treatment. It's out of the same playbook as calling drunken sex rape.

- Krumhorn; 12/9/14, 2:04 PM
Curious George said...: Can we blame Nancy Pelosi for being complicit in this torture again?; 12/9/14, 2:27 PM
Goju said...: If I were a Dem, I would be worried about all those skeletons in the closet that may get leaked to the news orgs. Poking at the CIA is not something to be done lightly.; 12/9/14, 3:46 PM
Murph said...: Along with the majority report [which is all you'll get from MSM], Lawfare has the minority report and the CIA response, and other documents.
They will be going through all the documents, comparing & contrasting the information provided.
I suspect that it might be wise to wait a bit before conclusively deciding what information to believe.
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/12/findings-conclusions-and-areas-of-dispute-between-the-ssci-report-the-minority-and-the-cia-part-1/; 12/9/14, 4:48 PM
jr565 said...: Look at any Sadaam torture tapes or ISIS videos to see torture. Our enhanced i terrogstio s are th same things we did to our own service men. Not even remotely comparable; 12/9/14, 7:50 PM
jr565 said...: ISIS has sawed off many westerners heads then put the videos up on You Tube. I don't think they really have cause to complain about our treatment of high level al Qaeda.
And I'd waterboard 10 ISIS members if it would save one prisoner from getting his head sawed off. Because getting your head sawed off seems like a really bad way to go. Whereas, journalists willfully subjected themselves to be water boarded just so they could comment on whether it ws torture. And they reported it on the news that night.; 12/9/14, 7:55 PM
Achilles said...: I love it when people who haven't participated in these events used words like "necessary" or "effective" as if they have any fucking clue what is necessary or effective. But they are all about standing up for the "rights" of people who are trying to kill us. By us I don't mean the whiners who don't want to get their precious little hands dirty. I mean us the ones they have to get through to get to you.

Seriously if you don't like the methods used to protect you get the fuck out. There are countries in Europe who do the same thing as we do, but they don't have a senate report so you can feel good about yourself at your computer complaining about water boarding.; 12/10/14, 1:20 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Seriously if you don't like the methods used to protect you get the fuck out."

None of these methods, or our wars of mass murder, are protecting us. (No war since WWII has been necessary or has "defended" us against anything.)

We should get the fuck out...of these wars we have started.; 12/10/14, 12:00 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Can we blame Nancy Pelosi for being complicit in this torture again?"

Sure; no one in Washington automatically gets a free pass just because of party affiliation.; 12/10/14, 12:01 PM
Robert Cook said...: "(Being waterboarded) is no fun at all, but it's most certainly NOT torture. For over 4 decades, every single American fighter pilot has been through SERE school and has been waterboarded in addition to other very unpleasant experiences.

"For me, worse than the waterboarding, was being confined to a very small metal box in sweltering heat and humidity when some evil Squid CPO shoved a snake in there through a small hole right by my left hip. To put it mildly, I learned how I react to primordial fears."

You were tortured--voluntarily, but still tortured--by your own government.

When anyone brings up the specious SERE training question--"did we 'torture' our own soldiers?"--one has to answer honestly: Yes, we did.

That's the whole point...to attempt to inure soldiers against torture to whatever degree possible, or at least to mitigate their fear of it insofar as possible. Otherwise, what's the point of it?; 12/10/14, 12:05 PM
Robert Cook said...: It's better that they be gutted with bayonets, burned with white phosphorus, or dismembered by shrapnel than staining our hands with water-boarding. That will make it nobler and more virtuos."

But who says we're not also doing all that, (on the battlefield, if not in the torture chambers)?

The one compounds the other; the evil of torture is not mitigated in the least by the greater evils we also do.; 12/10/14, 12:08 PM
Robert Cook said...: "I'm guessing the Obama administration is saying they don't want this released because they don't want a report issued about them in 4 years."

This is certainly true. The Obama administration is no less guilty.; 12/10/14, 12:10 PM