The president goes to Capitol Hill to lobby for torture.
 

PRESIDENT BUSH rarely visits Congress. So it was a measure of his painfully skewed priorities that Mr. Bush made the unaccustomed trip yesterday to seek legislative permission for the CIA to make people disappear into secret prisons and have information extracted from them by means he dare not describe publicly.
Of course, Mr. Bush didn't come out and say he's lobbying for torture. Instead he refers to "an alternative set of procedures" for interrogation. But the administration no longer conceals what it wants. It wants authorization for the CIA to hide detainees in overseas prisons where even the International Committee of the Red Cross won't have access. It wants permission to interrogate those detainees with abusive practices that in the past have included induced hypothermia and "waterboarding," or simulated drowning. And it wants the right to try such detainees, and perhaps sentence them to death, on the basis of evidence that the defendants cannot see and that may have been extracted during those abusive interrogation sessions.


There's no question that the United States is facing a dangerous foe that uses the foulest of methods. But a wide array of generals and others who should know argue that it is neither prudent nor useful for the United States to compromise its own values in response. "I continue to read and hear that we are facing a 'different enemy' in the war on terror," retired Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a letter to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) this week. "No matter how true that may be, inhumanity and cruelty are not new to warfare nor to enemies we have faced in the past. . . . Through those years, we held to our own values. We should continue to do so."
Another former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and one more intimately familiar with the war on terrorism, also weighed in this week: "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism," former general and secretary of state Colin L. Powell wrote to McCain. "To redefine Common Article 3 would add to those doubts."
Mr. Powell was referring to an article of the Geneva Conventions that prohibits cruel and degrading treatment of detainees. Mr. Bush, with support from most Republican congressional leaders, wants to redefine American obligations under the treaty. Three Republican senators -- John W. Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee; Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina; and Mr. McCain -- are bravely promoting an alternative measure that would allow terrorists to be questioned and tried without breaking faith with traditional U.S. values. The Armed Services Committee approved their bill yesterday and sent it to the Senate floor.
The doubts of which Mr. Powell spoke are impeding the U.S. war effort. A president who lobbies for torture feeds those doubts even if, as we hope, Congress denies him his request.

I'm all for torturing the captured Islamic fascist leaders. But it should be the right method. For starters, I would put them in a room with nothing but a TV that played nothing but 9/11 news footage all day for a year. Because at the very least, the terrorists should suffer the same torture as every American did.

I personally don't feel these people have feelings so do you think it would really affect them? GIve them the shock treatment you know light bulb in an open brain like hitler did. j/k but I know what you mean let them feel the torture but how do you torture someone that has no feelings?

I see your point. Thus they blast Red Hot Chili Peppers for hours......

Personally I see no problem with the old "fingernails across the chalkboard" technique. But if that won't get them to flip, then there is always the tried and true "wedgie". (male detainees only)

But my all time favorite "childhood torture" technique was when you tackle your little brother and hold him down and then hock an loogie and let it slowly druel down out of your mouth until it almost touches his face, then suck it back up really quick.. Do this several times, and any terrorist would be crying "uncle" in no time.

What do they do to Americans ???
 

They hack off heads and do much more to Americans and far as that goes
to anybody they find and need info from. If they dont need info then they
just kill them NO trial just death. Now as far as PRESIDENT Bush goes and
he is your president he is doing the right thing. I like the drones that shoot
them from the night sky best. We can not fight these people with our hands tied behind our back by the bleeding hearts. I sure hope there is some good
news for the GOP and our country come November that will send a message
to the Arabs, Persians and the rest of the world.
Isaac

I have mixed feelings on this. Thing about torture.. all these years, I grew up believing that when you get right down to it.. WE (the U.S.) are the GOOD guys, and we don't do all this crazy **** like they do in OTHER countries. Maybe I just watched too many movies growing up :)

HOWEVER, on the other hand, if some crazy MO FO has information on a bomb or something etc.. Sure. TORTURE the heck out of them until they give up the info, and I don't care what the 'treatment' is.

Of course the trick is, don't let anyone KNOW you tortured them.. You know like Sipowitz on NYPD Blue.. HE KNEW when someone was guilty, he'd pull the shade down and BEAT the confession out of them. That's how it's supposed to work :)