Posting Towards Gomorrah

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Just say no to the death tax!

I take it you're also planning on bumping off your parents in 2010? I'm worried that mine are going to flee the country before my siblings and I can get to them.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Me too! We can pace each other. Wait, wrong book....

what does the big word at the top of page 24 mean?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
I take it you're also planning on bumping off your parents in 2010? I'm worried that mine are going to flee the country before my siblings and I can get to them.

You'd be amazed how many estate planners are actually advising clients to leave parents on the ventilator until December 31, 2010. To be fair, some of them are joking.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Why won't he tell the truth?

Bush lied!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

President Bush, yesterday:

• Zubaydah was questioned using these procedures, and soon he began to provide information on key al Qaeda operatives, including information that helped us find and capture more of those responsible for the attacks on September the 11th. For example, Zubaydah identified one of KSM's accomplices in the 9/11 attacks--a terrorist named Ramzi bin al Shibh.

Spencer Ackerman:

• [T]he idea that Abu Zubaydah's interrogation tipped off the U.S. to the existence of Ramzi bin Al Shibh is just an outright lie. A Nexis search for "Ramzi Binalshibh" between September 11, 2001 and March 1, 2002--the U.S. captured Abu Zubaydah in March 2002--turns up 26 hits for The Washington Post alone. Everyone involved in counterterrorism knew who bin Al Shibh was. Now-retired FBI Al Qaeda hunter Dennis Lormel told Congress who Ramzi bin Al Shibh was in February 2002. Abu Zubaydah getting waterboarded and spouting bin Al Shibh's name did not tell us anything we did not already know.
  
  Of course, most Americans don't have access to Nexis. And most Americans don't remember--and can't be expected to remember--newspaper coverage of Al Qaeda for a seven-month stretch between the attacks and Abu Zubaydah's capture. Bush is exploiting that ignorance to tell the American people an outright lie in order to convince them that we need to torture people.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
President Bush, yesterday:

• Zubaydah was questioned using these procedures, and soon he began to provide information on key al Qaeda operatives, including information that helped us find and capture more of those responsible for the attacks on September the 11th. For example, Zubaydah identified one of KSM's accomplices in the 9/11 attacks--a terrorist named Ramzi bin al Shibh.

Spencer Ackerman:

• [T]he idea that Abu Zubaydah's interrogation tipped off the U.S. to the existence of Ramzi bin Al Shibh is just an outright lie. A Nexis search for "Ramzi Binalshibh" between September 11, 2001 and March 1, 2002--the U.S. captured Abu Zubaydah in March 2002--turns up 26 hits for The Washington Post alone. Everyone involved in counterterrorism knew who bin Al Shibh was. Now-retired FBI Al Qaeda hunter Dennis Lormel told Congress who Ramzi bin Al Shibh was in February 2002. Abu Zubaydah getting waterboarded and spouting bin Al Shibh's name did not tell us anything we did not already know.
  
  Of course, most Americans don't have access to Nexis. And most Americans don't remember--and can't be expected to remember--newspaper coverage of Al Qaeda for a seven-month stretch between the attacks and Abu Zubaydah's capture. Bush is exploiting that ignorance to tell the American people an outright lie in order to convince them that we need to torture people.

Bush lied!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Bush lied!

Indeed.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
That he ordered the torture of an insane low-level Al Qaeda functionary in the hopes that the guy would cough up something justifying what Bush had already said about him.

How about just about torturing him?

All you guys are pretty much OK with saying that torturing Al Qaeda is fine. They have it coming, we get intelligence, etc. So why is Bush such a pansy about it? Strong leadership is not having your cake and eating it too. So much for the courage of his convictions.

What Suskind describes is less "torture" than I got as a fraternity pledge.

Give me a fucking break.

[SlaveNoMore]

Replaced_Texan
Me too! We can pace each other. Wait, wrong book....

I just finished "Bear".

Fforde's gone off the deep end with this one, i'll just say.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
What Suskind describes is less "torture" than I got as a fraternity pledge.

Give me a fucking break.

See, I think this is torture:

• According to CIA sources, he was water-boarded, a technique in which a captive's face is covered with a towel as water is poured atop, creating the sensation of drowning. He was beaten, though not in a way to worsen his injuries. He was repeatedly threatened, and made certain of his impending death. His medication was withheld. He was bombarded with deafening, continuous noise and harsh lights. He was a man already diminished by serious injuries, more fully at the mercy of interrogators than an ordinary prisoner.

That's from page 115 of Suskind's book.

If that's not torture, what is, in your view?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
See, I think this is torture:

• According to CIA sources, he was water-boarded, a technique in which a captive's face is covered with a towel as water is poured atop, creating the sensation of drowning. He was beaten, though not in a way to worsen his injuries. He was repeatedly threatened, and made certain of his impending death. His medication was withheld. He was bombarded with deafening, continuous noise and harsh lights. He was a man already diminished by serious injuries, more fully at the mercy of interrogators than an ordinary prisoner.

That's from page 115 of Suskind's book.

If that's not torture, what is, in your view?

this offends me. can you please delete your post? or in the alternative repost Diane's photos of people jumping out the WTC.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
this offends me. can you please delete your post? or in the alternative repost Diane's photos of people jumping out the WTC.

Is there a suggestion here of moral equivalence, Hank? Or is it merely an implicit acknowledgement that both are reprehensible?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Is there a suggestion here of moral equivalence, Hank? Or is it merely an implicit acknowledgement that both are reprehensible?

all across the world people are suffering through intrusive airport security, now flying hours with no water, babies allowed limited formula/mom's milk, etc.

If it takes tortue to get some of the scum fucks to talk I would be pissed off if we didn't.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
See, I think this is torture:

• According to CIA sources, he was water-boarded, a technique in which a captive's face is covered with a towel as water is poured atop, creating the sensation of drowning. He was beaten, though not in a way to worsen his injuries. He was repeatedly threatened, and made certain of his impending death. His medication was withheld. He was bombarded with deafening, continuous noise and harsh lights. He was a man already diminished by serious injuries, more fully at the mercy of interrogators than an ordinary prisoner.

That's from page 115 of Suskind's book.

If that's not torture, what is, in your view?

To use the famous line from Potter Stewart, "I know it when I see it"

And that ain't it.

[SlaveNoMore]

taxwonk
Is there a suggestion here of moral equivalence, Hank? Or is it merely an implicit acknowledgement that both are reprehensible?

I feel a hell of a lot worse for the incarcerated in this country, where male-on-male rape and abuse is the jailhouse norm, and yet people use that as a source for joke material.