The effectiveness of the "enhanced" techniques.

[ABikerSailor]

Historical uses

Spanish Inquisition

A form of torture similar to waterboarding called toca, and more recently "Spanish water torture", to differentiate it from the better known Chinese water torture, along with garrucha (or strappado) and the most frequently used potro (or the rack), was used infrequently during the trial portion of the Spanish Inquisition process. "The toca, also called tortura del agua, consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning".[51] William Schweiker claims that the use of water as a form of torture also had profound religious significance to the Inquisitors.[52]

Colonial times

Agents of the Dutch East India Company used a precursor to waterboarding during the Amboyna massacre, which took place on the island of Amboyna in the Molucca Islands in 1623. At that time, it consisted of wrapping cloth around the victim's head, after which the torturers "poured the water softly upon his head until the cloth was full, up to the mouth and nostrils, and somewhat higher, so that he could not draw breath but he must suck in all the water".[53][54][55][56] In one case, the torturer applied water three or four times successively until the victim's "body was swollen twice or thrice as big as before, his cheeks like great bladders, and his eyes staring and strutting out beyond his forehead".[55][56][57][58]

19th century prisons

An editorial in The New York Times of April 6, 1852, and a subsequent April 21, 1852 letter to the editors documents an incidence of waterboarding, then called "showering," or "hydropathic torture," in New York's Sing Sing prison of an inmate named Henry Hagan, who, after several other forms of beating and mistreatment, had his head shaved, and "certainly three, and possibly a dozen, barrels of water were poured upon his naked scalp." Hagan was then placed in a yoke.[59] A correspondent listed only as "H" later wrote: "Perhaps it would be well to state more fully the true character of this 'hydropathic torture.' The stream of water is about one inch in diameter, and falls from a hight [sic] of seven or eight feet. The head of the patient is retained in its place by means of a board clasping the neck; the effect of which is, that the water, striking upon the board, rebounds into the mouth and nostrils of the victim, almost producing strangulation. Congestion, sometimes of the heart or lungs, sometimes of the brain, not unfrequently [sic] ensues; and death, in due season, has released some sufferers from the further ordeal of the water cure. As the water is administered officially, I suppose that it is not murder!" H. then went on to cite an 1847 New York law which limited prison discipline to individual confinement "upon a short allowance."[60]

After the Spanish-American War of 1898

After the Spanish American War of 1898 in the Philippines, the US Army used waterboarding which was called the "water cure" at the time. Reports of "cruelties" from soldiers stationed in the Philippines led to Senate Hearings on US activity in the Philippines.

Testimony described the waterboarding of Tobeniano Ealdama "while supervised by …Captain/Major Edwin F. Glenn (Glenn Highway)."[cite this quote]

Elihu Root, United States Secretary of War, ordered a court martial for Glenn in April 1902."[61] During the trial, Glenn "maintained that the torture of Ealdama was 'a legitimate exercise of force under the laws of war.'"[62]

Though some reports seem to confuse Ealdama with Glenn,[63] he was found guilty and "sentenced to a one-month suspension and a fifty-dollar fine," the leniency of the sentence due to the "circumstances" presented at the trial.[62]

President Theodore Roosevelt privately rationalized the instances of "mild torture, the water cure" but publicly called for efforts to "prevent the occurrence of all such acts in the future." In that effort, he ordered the court-martial of General Jacob H. Smith on the island of Samar, "where some of the worst abuses had occurred." When the court-martial found only that he had acted with excessive zeal, Roosevelt disregarded the verdict and had the General dismissed from the Army.[64]

Roosevelt soon declared victory in the Philippines, and the public lost interest in "what had, only months earlier, been alarming revelations."[62]

World War II

During World War II both Japanese troops, especially the Kempeitai, and the officers of the Gestapo,[65] the German secret police, used waterboarding as a method of torture.[66] During the Japanese occupation of Singapore the Double Tenth Incident occurred. This included waterboarding, by the method of binding or holding down the victim on his back, placing a cloth over his mouth and nose, and pouring water onto the cloth. In this version, interrogation continued during the torture, with the interrogators beating the victim if he did not reply and the victim swallowing water if he opened his mouth to answer or breathe. When the victim could ingest no more water, the interrogators would beat or jump on his distended stomach.[67][68][69]

Chase J. Nielsen, one of the U.S. airmen who flew in the Doolittle raid following the attack on Pearl Harbor, was subjected to waterboarding by his Japanese captors.[70] At their trial for war crimes following the war, he testified "Well, I was put on my back on the floor with my arms and legs stretched out, one guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped around my face and put across my face and water poured on. They poured water on this towel until I was almost unconscious from strangulation, then they would let up until I'd get my breath, then they'd start over again… I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death."[30]

Algerian War

The technique was also used during the Algerian War (1954-1962). The French journalist Henri Alleg, who was subjected to waterboarding by French paratroopers in Algeria in 1957,[71] is one of only a few people to have described in writing the first-hand experience of being waterboarded. His book La Question, published in 1958 with a preface by Jean-Paul Sartre subsequently banned in France until the end of the Algerian War in 1962,[72] discusses the experience of being strapped to a plank, having his head wrapped in cloth and positioned beneath a running tap:

The rag was soaked rapidly. Water flowed everywhere: in my mouth, in my nose, all over my face. But for a while I could still breathe in some small gulps of air. I tried, by contracting my throat, to take in as little water as possible and to resist suffocation by keeping air in my lungs for as long as I could. But I couldn't hold on for more than a few moments. I had the impression of drowning, and a terrible agony, that of death itself, took possession of me. In spite of myself, all the muscles of my body struggled uselessly to save me from suffocation. In spite of myself, the fingers of both my hands shook uncontrollably. "That's it! He's going to talk", said a voice.

The water stopped running and they took away the rag. I was able to breathe. In the gloom, I saw the lieutenants and the captain, who, with a cigarette between his lips, was hitting my stomach with his fist to make me throw out the water I had swallowed.[71][73]

Alleg stated that he had not broken under his ordeal of being waterboarded.[74] Alleg has stated that the incidence of "accidental" death of prisoners being subjected to waterboarding in Algeria was "very frequent".[4]

Vietnam War

Waterboarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in the Vietnam War.[75] On January 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a controversial front-page photograph of two U.S soldiers and one South Vietnamese soldier participating in the waterboarding of a North Vietnamese POW near Da Nang.[76] The article described the practice as "fairly common".[76] The photograph led to the soldier being court-martialled by a U.S. military court within one month of its publication, and he was discharged from the army.[75][77] Another waterboarding photograph of the same scene, referred to as "water torture" in the caption, is also exhibited in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.[78]

Chile
Further information: Operation Condor
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (January 2009)

Based on the testimonies from more than 35,000 victims, of the Pinochet regime, the Chilean Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture concluded that to provoke a near death experience, by waterboarding, is torture.[79]

Khmer Rouge
Waterboard displayed at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Prisoners' feet were shackled to the bar on the right, their wrists were restrained by the shackles on the left, and water was poured over their face using the blue watering can.

The Khmer Rouge at the Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, used waterboarding as a method of torture between 1975 and 1979.[80] The practice was documented in a painting by former inmate Vann Nath, which is on display in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The museum also has on display boards and other actual tools used for waterboarding during the Khmer Rouge regime.[81][82]

U.S. Military survival training
Main article: Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape

All special operations units in all branches of the U.S. military and the CIA's Special Activities Division [83] employ the use of waterboarding as part of survival school (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) training, to psychologically prepare soldiers for the eventuality of being captured by the enemy forces.[84]

Jane Mayer wrote for The New Yorker:

According to the SERE affiliate and two other sources familiar with the program, after September 11th several psychologists versed in SERE techniques began advising interrogators at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. Some of these psychologists essentially "tried to reverse-engineer" the SERE program, as the affiliate put it. "They took good knowledge and used it in a bad way", another of the sources said. Interrogators and BSCT members at Guantánamo adopted coercive techniques similar to those employed in the SERE program.[85]

and continues to report:

many of the interrogation methods used in SERE training seem to have been applied at Guantánamo.[85]

Now.......if you are here on a messageboard, posting your thoughts, then obviously you can read.

Waterboarding is torture. Primarily, it was used to obtain FALSE CONFESSIONS.

The reason that the Bush admin used it? To establish a link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. They wanted to justify the war for oil and to avenge Bush 42's honor. Bush Jr. the Chimp, wanted to get back at Saddam for going after his father.

If someone was actually paying attention to history, they would know that waterboarding, as well as torture, never works.

Jesse Ventura (who incidentally is a SEAL who went through SERE school, and has been waterboarded as part of his training for 'Nam), stated that if you gave him 1 hour, Cheney and a waterboard, he could get him to confess to the Sharon Tate murder.

Waterboarding does NOT WORK.

 

[Yurt]

Historical uses

Spanish Inquisition

A form of torture similar to waterboarding called toca, and more recently "Spanish water torture", to differentiate it from the better known Chinese water torture, along with garrucha (or strappado) and the most frequently used potro (or the rack), was used infrequently during the trial portion of the Spanish Inquisition process. "The toca, also called tortura del agua, consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning".[51] William Schweiker claims that the use of water as a form of torture also had profound religious significance to the Inquisitors.[52]

Colonial times

Agents of the Dutch East India Company used a precursor to waterboarding during the Amboyna massacre, which took place on the island of Amboyna in the Molucca Islands in 1623. At that time, it consisted of wrapping cloth around the victim's head, after which the torturers "poured the water softly upon his head until the cloth was full, up to the mouth and nostrils, and somewhat higher, so that he could not draw breath but he must suck in all the water".[53][54][55][56] In one case, the torturer applied water three or four times successively until the victim's "body was swollen twice or thrice as big as before, his cheeks like great bladders, and his eyes staring and strutting out beyond his forehead".[55][56][57][58]

19th century prisons

An editorial in The New York Times of April 6, 1852, and a subsequent April 21, 1852 letter to the editors documents an incidence of waterboarding, then called "showering," or "hydropathic torture," in New York's Sing Sing prison of an inmate named Henry Hagan, who, after several other forms of beating and mistreatment, had his head shaved, and "certainly three, and possibly a dozen, barrels of water were poured upon his naked scalp." Hagan was then placed in a yoke.[59] A correspondent listed only as "H" later wrote: "Perhaps it would be well to state more fully the true character of this 'hydropathic torture.' The stream of water is about one inch in diameter, and falls from a hight [sic] of seven or eight feet. The head of the patient is retained in its place by means of a board clasping the neck; the effect of which is, that the water, striking upon the board, rebounds into the mouth and nostrils of the victim, almost producing strangulation. Congestion, sometimes of the heart or lungs, sometimes of the brain, not unfrequently [sic] ensues; and death, in due season, has released some sufferers from the further ordeal of the water cure. As the water is administered officially, I suppose that it is not murder!" H. then went on to cite an 1847 New York law which limited prison discipline to individual confinement "upon a short allowance."[60]

After the Spanish-American War of 1898

After the Spanish American War of 1898 in the Philippines, the US Army used waterboarding which was called the "water cure" at the time. Reports of "cruelties" from soldiers stationed in the Philippines led to Senate Hearings on US activity in the Philippines.

Testimony described the waterboarding of Tobeniano Ealdama "while supervised by …Captain/Major Edwin F. Glenn (Glenn Highway)."[cite this quote]

Elihu Root, United States Secretary of War, ordered a court martial for Glenn in April 1902."[61] During the trial, Glenn "maintained that the torture of Ealdama was 'a legitimate exercise of force under the laws of war.'"[62]

Though some reports seem to confuse Ealdama with Glenn,[63] he was found guilty and "sentenced to a one-month suspension and a fifty-dollar fine," the leniency of the sentence due to the "circumstances" presented at the trial.[62]

President Theodore Roosevelt privately rationalized the instances of "mild torture, the water cure" but publicly called for efforts to "prevent the occurrence of all such acts in the future." In that effort, he ordered the court-martial of General Jacob H. Smith on the island of Samar, "where some of the worst abuses had occurred." When the court-martial found only that he had acted with excessive zeal, Roosevelt disregarded the verdict and had the General dismissed from the Army.[64]

Roosevelt soon declared victory in the Philippines, and the public lost interest in "what had, only months earlier, been alarming revelations."[62]

World War II

During World War II both Japanese troops, especially the Kempeitai, and the officers of the Gestapo,[65] the German secret police, used waterboarding as a method of torture.[66] During the Japanese occupation of Singapore the Double Tenth Incident occurred. This included waterboarding, by the method of binding or holding down the victim on his back, placing a cloth over his mouth and nose, and pouring water onto the cloth. In this version, interrogation continued during the torture, with the interrogators beating the victim if he did not reply and the victim swallowing water if he opened his mouth to answer or breathe. When the victim could ingest no more water, the interrogators would beat or jump on his distended stomach.[67][68][69]

Chase J. Nielsen, one of the U.S. airmen who flew in the Doolittle raid following the attack on Pearl Harbor, was subjected to waterboarding by his Japanese captors.[70] At their trial for war crimes following the war, he testified "Well, I was put on my back on the floor with my arms and legs stretched out, one guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped around my face and put across my face and water poured on. They poured water on this towel until I was almost unconscious from strangulation, then they would let up until I'd get my breath, then they'd start over again… I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death."[30]

Algerian War

The technique was also used during the Algerian War (1954-1962). The French journalist Henri Alleg, who was subjected to waterboarding by French paratroopers in Algeria in 1957,[71] is one of only a few people to have described in writing the first-hand experience of being waterboarded. His book La Question, published in 1958 with a preface by Jean-Paul Sartre subsequently banned in France until the end of the Algerian War in 1962,[72] discusses the experience of being strapped to a plank, having his head wrapped in cloth and positioned beneath a running tap:

The rag was soaked rapidly. Water flowed everywhere: in my mouth, in my nose, all over my face. But for a while I could still breathe in some small gulps of air. I tried, by contracting my throat, to take in as little water as possible and to resist suffocation by keeping air in my lungs for as long as I could. But I couldn't hold on for more than a few moments. I had the impression of drowning, and a terrible agony, that of death itself, took possession of me. In spite of myself, all the muscles of my body struggled uselessly to save me from suffocation. In spite of myself, the fingers of both my hands shook uncontrollably. "That's it! He's going to talk", said a voice.

The water stopped running and they took away the rag. I was able to breathe. In the gloom, I saw the lieutenants and the captain, who, with a cigarette between his lips, was hitting my stomach with his fist to make me throw out the water I had swallowed.[71][73]

Alleg stated that he had not broken under his ordeal of being waterboarded.[74] Alleg has stated that the incidence of "accidental" death of prisoners being subjected to waterboarding in Algeria was "very frequent".[4]

Vietnam War

Waterboarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in the Vietnam War.[75] On January 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a controversial front-page photograph of two U.S soldiers and one South Vietnamese soldier participating in the waterboarding of a North Vietnamese POW near Da Nang.[76] The article described the practice as "fairly common".[76] The photograph led to the soldier being court-martialled by a U.S. military court within one month of its publication, and he was discharged from the army.[75][77] Another waterboarding photograph of the same scene, referred to as "water torture" in the caption, is also exhibited in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.[78]

Chile
Further information: Operation Condor
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (January 2009)

Based on the testimonies from more than 35,000 victims, of the Pinochet regime, the Chilean Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture concluded that to provoke a near death experience, by waterboarding, is torture.[79]

Khmer Rouge
Waterboard displayed at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Prisoners' feet were shackled to the bar on the right, their wrists were restrained by the shackles on the left, and water was poured over their face using the blue watering can.

The Khmer Rouge at the Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, used waterboarding as a method of torture between 1975 and 1979.[80] The practice was documented in a painting by former inmate Vann Nath, which is on display in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The museum also has on display boards and other actual tools used for waterboarding during the Khmer Rouge regime.[81][82]

U.S. Military survival training
Main article: Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape

All special operations units in all branches of the U.S. military and the CIA's Special Activities Division [83] employ the use of waterboarding as part of survival school (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) training, to psychologically prepare soldiers for the eventuality of being captured by the enemy forces.[84]

Jane Mayer wrote for The New Yorker:

According to the SERE affiliate and two other sources familiar with the program, after September 11th several psychologists versed in SERE techniques began advising interrogators at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. Some of these psychologists essentially "tried to reverse-engineer" the SERE program, as the affiliate put it. "They took good knowledge and used it in a bad way", another of the sources said. Interrogators and BSCT members at Guantánamo adopted coercive techniques similar to those employed in the SERE program.[85]

and continues to report:

many of the interrogation methods used in SERE training seem to have been applied at Guantánamo.[85]

Now.......if you are here on a messageboard, posting your thoughts, then obviously you can read.

Waterboarding is torture. Primarily, it was used to obtain FALSE CONFESSIONS.

The reason that the Bush admin used it? To establish a link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. They wanted to justify the war for oil and to avenge Bush 42's honor. Bush Jr. the Chimp, wanted to get back at Saddam for going after his father.

If someone was actually paying attention to history, they would know that waterboarding, as well as torture, never works.

Jesse Ventura (who incidentally is a SEAL who went through SERE school, and has been waterboarded as part of his training for 'Nam), stated that if you gave him 1 hour, Cheney and a waterboard, he could get him to confess to the Sharon Tate murder.

Waterboarding does NOT WORK.

so when obama said it worked and his intelligence said it did, they were lying?

 

[Bullypulpit]

i notice that you have left obama out of your post....why is this when he supports the underlined?

Consider criticism of the Obama administration on the subject implicit.

so whenever you attack bush on this subject i should somehow know you aslo mean to attack obama...

Until the Obama administration fully repudiates the policies of the Bush administration on matter and appoints a special prosecutor to investigate the allegations of war crimes against members of the Bush administration, yes.

 

[ABikerSailor]

so when obama said it worked and his intelligence said it did, they were lying?

Yep.

 

[Yurt]

so when obama said it worked and his intelligence said it did, they were lying?

Yep.

let me get this right...all these people who have the inside details are lying that the enhanced techniques worked....and you know this how? what reason would obama have to lie?

 

[Life_Long_Dem!]

t r u t h o u t | Ex-CIA Official: Agency Brass Lied to Congress About Interrogations

very interesting read!

 

[Life_Long_Dem!]

t r u t h o u t | Ex-CIA Official: Agency Brass Lied to Congress About Interrogations

very interesting read!

quite the telling read right hear in this part

But the veracity of those assertions have been called into question by former CIA official Mary O. McCarthy, who said senior agency officials lied to members of Congress during an intelligence briefing in 2005 when they said the agency did not violate treaties that bar, cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees during interrogations, according to a May 14, 2006, front-page story in The Washington Post.

"A CIA employee of two decades, McCarthy became convinced that 'CIA people had lied' in that briefing, as one of her friends said later, not only because the agency had conducted abusive interrogations but also because its policies authorized treatment that she considered cruel, inhumane or degrading," The Washington Post reported.

"In addition to CIA misrepresentations at the session last summer, McCarthy told the friends, a senior agency official failed to provide a full account of the CIA's detainee-treatment policy at a closed hearing of the House intelligence committee in February 2005, under questioning by Rep. Jane Harman (California), the senior Democrat," The Washington Post reported.

"McCarthy also told others she was offended that the CIA's general counsel had worked to secure a secret Justice Department opinion in 2004 authorizing the agency's creation of "ghost detainees" - prisoners removed from Iraq for secret interrogations without notice to the International Committee of the Red Cross - because the Geneva Conventions prohibit such practices."

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

It's on topic, Obama's own acknowledged the effectiveness of EIT's...are you losing it?

This is the title of the thread right?

The effectiveness of the "enhanced" techniques.

Since when did a thread title at USMB (or any other good site on the internet(s)) have anything to do with the topic at hand?

The thread is about the use at GITMO and it contains words from people who were there in the room---who got intel---who claimed the VP/Cheney was like you, talking out of his arse.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

t r u t h o u t | Ex-CIA Official: Agency Brass Lied to Congress About Interrogations

very interesting read!

But Pelosi was briefed on them. Leon Panetta says she is wrong.

 

[Life_Long_Dem!]

t r u t h o u t | Ex-CIA Official: Agency Brass Lied to Congress About Interrogations

very interesting read!

But Pelosi was briefed on them. Leon Panetta says she is wrong.

apparently you didnt read my second post on the story, it is an excerpt that puts those briefing assertions into question so here you go

But the veracity of those assertions have been called into question by former CIA official Mary O. McCarthy, who said senior agency officials lied to members of Congress during an intelligence briefing in 2005 when they said the agency did not violate treaties that bar, cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees during interrogations, according to a May 14, 2006, front-page story in The Washington Post.

"A CIA employee of two decades, McCarthy became convinced that 'CIA people had lied' in that briefing, as one of her friends said later, not only because the agency had conducted abusive interrogations but also because its policies authorized treatment that she considered cruel, inhumane or degrading," The Washington Post reported.

"In addition to CIA misrepresentations at the session last summer, McCarthy told the friends, a senior agency official failed to provide a full account of the CIA's detainee-treatment policy at a closed hearing of the House intelligence committee in February 2005, under questioning by Rep. Jane Harman (California), the senior Democrat," The Washington Post reported.

"McCarthy also told others she was offended that the CIA's general counsel had worked to secure a secret Justice Department opinion in 2004 authorizing the agency's creation of "ghost detainees" - prisoners removed from Iraq for secret interrogations without notice to the International Committee of the Red Cross - because the Geneva Conventions prohibit such practices."

 

[Pyrite]

"The president has decided to send a Marine battalion — which are usually between 500 to 1,500 troops originally slated for Iraq to Afghanistan in November.

In January, an Army brigade — of 3,500 to 5,000 troops — will also go to Afghanistan.

The U.S. already has 31,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, up from 21,000 two years ago, according to the White House. "
Bush: Troops to divert to Afghanistan - Washington Times

The president has already announced plans to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraq by August 2010. However, as many as 50,000 are expected to remain in the country beyond that to perform counterterrorism duties.
Obama: Time for Iraqis to 'take responsibility' - Conflict in Iraq- msnbc.com

How exactly does this contradict or respond to anything I said? I'm getting tired of your strategy of throwing news articles at me in the hopes that one of them will be relevant.

 

[DavidS]

I've never heard of "truthout" before. So, until this is picked up by a major news source, I won't trust it.

 

[Life_Long_Dem!]

I've never heard of "truthout" before. So, until this is picked up by a major news source, I won't trust it.

its alternative media...look into it, news without the corporate agenda and minus political leaning bias.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

any dope can call something into question. that a case does not make.

 

[Life_Long_Dem!]

I've never heard of "truthout" before. So, until this is picked up by a major news source, I won't trust it.

its alternative media...look into it, news without the corporate agenda and minus political leaning bias.

besides I got it off a trustworthy links site that has news from many sources...

BuzzFlash - Daily Headlines and Breaking News | Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude

 

[PoliticalChic]

"The president has decided to send a Marine battalion — which are usually between 500 to 1,500 troops originally slated for Iraq to Afghanistan in November.

In January, an Army brigade — of 3,500 to 5,000 troops — will also go to Afghanistan.

The U.S. already has 31,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, up from 21,000 two years ago, according to the White House. "
Bush: Troops to divert to Afghanistan - Washington Times

The president has already announced plans to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraq by August 2010. However, as many as 50,000 are expected to remain in the country beyond that to perform counterterrorism duties.
Obama: Time for Iraqis to 'take responsibility' - Conflict in Iraq- msnbc.com

How exactly does this contradict or respond to anything I said? I'm getting tired of your strategy of throwing news articles at me in the hopes that one of them will be relevant.

If it tires you, find someone to tutor you in the English language.

You said that President Bush 'ignored' Afghanistan.

Did you not?

"The president has decided to send a Marine battalion — which are usually between 500 to 1,500 troops originally slated for Iraq to Afghanistan in November.

In January, an Army brigade — of 3,500 to 5,000 troops — will also go to Afghanistan.

The U.S. already has 31,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, up from 21,000 two years ago, according to the White House. "
Bush: Troops to divert to Afghanistan - Washington Times

Here is the operative phrase: "...already has 31,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, up from 21,000 two years ago..."

ignore means "to refrain from noticing or recognizing."

Is it your position that you were unaware of the meaning of 'ignore,' or that the 36,000 troops mentioned above were lost and stumbled into Afghanistan?

Retract.

 

[catzmeow]

WHen the mainstream media covers this, then it will become news. IMO, Truthout is not a credible source.

 

[Life_Long_Dem!]

WHen the mainstream media covers this, then it will become news. IMO, Truthout is not a credible source.

when will you guys wake up and realize you CAN NOT depend on msm for all your news!? the big ones are all owned by corporations with agendas they follow, either from the left or from the right. Alternative media is a strong outlet that is only growing stronger because they are only in it for the truth, NO agendas involved, just because the "msm" does not cover something does not make it an unreliable thing...wake up people!

 

[Pyrite]

If it tires you, find someone to tutor you in the English language.

You said that President Bush 'ignored' Afghanistan.

Did you not?

"The president has decided to send a Marine battalion — which are usually between 500 to 1,500 troops originally slated for Iraq to Afghanistan in November.

In January, an Army brigade — of 3,500 to 5,000 troops — will also go to Afghanistan.

The U.S. already has 31,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, up from 21,000 two years ago, according to the White House. "
Bush: Troops to divert to Afghanistan - Washington Times

Here is the operative phrase: "...already has 31,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, up from 21,000 two years ago..."

ignore means "to refrain from noticing or recognizing."

Is it your position that you were unaware of the meaning of 'ignore,' or that the 36,000 troops mentioned above were lost and stumbled into Afghanistan?

Retract.

I misread the stories you quoted, and didn't realize you were describing Bush's troop movements, rather than Obamas. I apologize for that.

Still, 31,000 had been an inadequate force, not enough to curb violence in Afghanistan. That Bush sent some troops there does nothing to change the fact that the sitution in Afghanistan has suffered from neglect.

So perhaps I should revise my statement to "Bush neglected Afghanistan, and provided inadequate forces to solve the problems there."

 

[PoliticalChic]

If it tires you, find someone to tutor you in the English language.

You said that President Bush 'ignored' Afghanistan.

Did you not?

"The president has decided to send a Marine battalion — which are usually between 500 to 1,500 troops originally slated for Iraq to Afghanistan in November.

In January, an Army brigade — of 3,500 to 5,000 troops — will also go to Afghanistan.

The U.S. already has 31,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, up from 21,000 two years ago, according to the White House. "
Bush: Troops to divert to Afghanistan - Washington Times

Here is the operative phrase: "...already has 31,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, up from 21,000 two years ago..."

ignore means "to refrain from noticing or recognizing."

Is it your position that you were unaware of the meaning of 'ignore,' or that the 36,000 troops mentioned above were lost and stumbled into Afghanistan?

Retract.

I misread the stories you quoted, and didn't realize you were describing Bush's troop movements, rather than Obamas. I apologize for that.

Still, 31,000 had been an inadequate force, not enough to curb violence in Afghanistan. That Bush sent some troops there does nothing to change the fact that the sitution in Afghanistan has suffered from neglect.

So perhaps I should revise my statement to "Bush neglected Afghanistan, and provided inadequate forces to solve the problems there."

OK, I may have been a bit harsh. Sorry.

My post was aimed at indicating that, contrary to what President Obama promised his supporters, he has continued the Bush-Cheney policies.

Possibly he is a more skilled politician than I had given him credit for, as he is risking alienating his base on these counts, but can regain same with his Supreme Court pick. We'll see.

As for whether or not his 'military tribunal' changes are cosmetic, I fear that your view of the banning of statements gotten by the enhanced techniques is cosmetic, in that he has gotten you to overlook the fact that he has imposed the tribunals. That was the goal.