Real Time: Bob Baer on Waterboarding- It's Torture
By Heather Sunday Apr 26, 2009 8:00amYou can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!
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Bob Baer, a former CIA officer visits the set of Real Time and explains why torture doesn't work and why waterboarding is torture. Baer also notes that we haven't even seen the worst of what happened because there are ninety two CIA cases that were destroyed because what was in them was so horrific.
John Amato:
It's very annoying that we still have to bring people out to explain over and over again that waterboarding is torture and "torture is bad.
We have to blame the media on this in reality because torture apologists will do and say anything to cloud the truth, but the media endlessly debates the same things over and over again. It's settled law and has been settled for decades. Torture is illegal and torture is a crime.
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republicans
The term torture is vague
But they know what a sexual act is.
Don't an awful lot of them think rape is a sexual act?
and they wonder why they are despised
They think that two dudes having sex in a bathroom doesn't make them gay or bisexual, as long as they don't talk about it.
They think that believing that things happen by magic is the surest path to intelligence, and that science is evil, unless it lines only their pockets with wealth.
They think torture is great, especially if B rated actors say it's okay on an overrated TV show.
They think lying is the truth, and that war is peace.
In short, they're insane, sexually dysfunctional, dishonest, delusional, sociopaths who support people with homicidal tendencies who want to rob us all blind.
Not nice people.
I can almost imagine Dick Cheney watching those torture videos and masturbating as fast as his malfunctioning, black little heart would allow him.
Bush wouldn't need those videos. He'd be in another room being 'interviewed' by Jeff Gannon, while 'speaking into Jeff's mike' for as long as he could.
The GOP is full of amoral madmen.
other than indicting, convicting and imprisonment of those responsible?
I don't think so.
there isn't.
you can look forward to more of this. Obama said he won't torture, well the last time I looked he wasn't appointed a lifetime king. If he won't, maybe the next guy will. What's going to stop them? There will be no consequences.
Next thing you know they'll be waterboarding us.
Yep. prosecute or the next guy will torture too, and he will have to start torturing some of 'the people' by about half way through his term to maintain 'stability'. If you have no compasion then think about that.
They come for everyone everntually.
why people don't get the next time the Goopers take over we'll see what living in real banana republic is like. 2001-09 was just setting precedents and gathering info.
Look at all those South Africans, Chileans, Argentines, etc. murdered by rightists and all their fucking governments did was a Truth Commission.
This time they did foreigners, next time, Americans.
???
After all, it sounds like that's what Obama would like to do.
Give all the perps a hearty slap on the back and a pardon.
He has said he doesn't believe in retribution and would like to just "move on".
explain over and over again that waterboarding is torture and "torture is bad. . . is because rapid fire media has destroyed people brains and their ability to retain any information. And of course some people just don't give a squat. And some say this ridiculous and go about trying to create a decent life for themselves.
What?
This entire interview/clip could have been reduced to about 5 seconds:
Maher: Isn't torture illegal?
Baer: Yes.
What a dis-service the MSM has become. They are certainly a big part of the problem.
start wearing a suit?
How about every person who thinks waterboarding isn't torture, gets waterboarded to prove it.
to get on TV and explain why God thinks torture is AOK with him
it certainly is very annoying to bring people out routinely about waterboarding and torture. remember the people that voted for BUSH especially the base are very righteous and still say attacking/occupying iraq after
9-11 was defensible. the blood is on their hands they don't want/handle the truth. torture is considered
the necessary evil of war according to them. they are of the thought that we can/must do what might
be considered BAD for the common GOOD. ultimately that's what they will stick by in the end.
I cannot tell you how sick I am of the question: "But, but ... what if it was a ticking time bomb? WHAT IF a BIG terrorist attack was planned, and the ONLY WAY to stop it was waterboarding???)
Many "lefties" say this, as well as Republicans. Even Bill Maher did.
Pathetic! This question has been answered many times. It is merely a GOP talking point.
It would help if those who could stop it would pay attention to the damn PDBs and SPECIFIC warnings.................
but that - like 'presidenting' - is too much work.
yes mahers is just a poormans jay leno, nothing more the a snearing douch, on that show he just had to make rude remarks about the lady with the angelic voice and as he says the face of a pushed in train caboose, the guy dont know jack shist , and half his pannels are clueless dickwads! his humor is just a sick twisted mishmash of toad stool ! and even waterboarding is funny to this tool !
... and spurting a gooey pile of dumb on this thread.
(Hint: the little red lines that appear under your words while you type are a spellcheck function - right click it before you hit 'submit' sometime)
Bill Maher is very frequently an abrasive jerk - that's his shtick - don't like it? don't watch - it's a problem that's easily solved for you tyree.
Maher offends me often with his frequent misfires and mean spirited 'jokes' but his show is one of the best things on TV. The panels/guests usually have very interesting things to say in spite of being wrangled by Bill's 'I'm a douche in a hurry' routine. The reason Bill Maher's show is important is that it is one of the rare places in mass media where issues get discussed in more or less reasonable fashion - and not as some kind of faux news 'discussion' where the conclusions regarding the 'issues' are pre-determined by the producers/editors of the show (agents of consolidated media-oligarchy) and panelists/guests/hosts are just there to simulate 'life-like' discussion or debate when really it is as scripted as any other work of fiction.
Bill is biased, the guests are biased, and the resulting discussion can reflect these differences in perspective without anyone relying on a false claim to integrity or truthfulness because they host a show on something called a 'news' network. Maher doesn't pretend to be anything he isn't - so why do Beck, Hannity, Wallace, Hume, Gibson, Stephanopolus, Downs, and all the villagers get to pretend to be journalists when what they are is propagandists.
US CODE TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 113C § 2340
Waterboarding IS a threat of imminent death.
The def you put up is pretty clear about exactly what comprises torture, waterboarding, slapping, beating, stress positions, drugs, whatever - it's all torture.
And, according to both US and International conventions, Torture is
ILLEGAL!! Not sometimes, not in instances where Cheney says it's okay, not when some gov't agent feels like having some fun, Never.
It's Illegal every time, all of the time.
All of this arguing and fear-mongering by Cheney and the rest of his buds, and Congress-critters galore, is just a smokescreen, stall tactic. They all know they've broken myriad laws and are scared shitless.
Won't someone in our government Please have the courage to stand up and do what is legal, what is moral, what is right??? Obama??
Anyone???
So when I slap my willy I'm torturing myself?
When you slap some one elses willy without their permission you're torturing them.
Perhaps a little session on my fearsome rack is in order!
;)
is that they may be wrong. that they may have been decieved. that the guy they voted for BUSH
was NOT the compassionate conservative they thought he was.
imho, it's the fact that the ruling class can decide on whether or not to go forward with their own prosecutions.
The major reason not to prosecute is because it would negatively affect both parties. Republicans because it happened under their watch and Democrats because they were complicit. All the rest is just fluff to hide from accountability.
Another reason for Obama's strong words against prosecution is to keep the CIA, FBI agents following orders. Prosecuting agents would spawn independent thought and questioning of each order an agent receives. This is exactly what Id like to see. This is moral spine the America needs to rebuild. But whats good for the people is not always good for their leaders.
Ya, you have to save the patient without killing him.
Still, you have to save the patient. I don't think that's possible without prosecutions. They just need to be investigated in fine detail, and that could take a while. meanwhile the republican party is over, hopefully.
I was very disappointed with the way he treated an Orthodox Jewish guest on his movie Religulous. The guest sided with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on returning Israel to Palestine, Bill went off on him saying something like "How can you side with a guy that wants to wipe Israel off the map." The guest tried to explain that Ahmadinejad never said that and the quote was wrong but Bill cut the interview like a pompous ass. His whole movie was about fix belief systems in religion but when it comes to challenging he's own beliefs he is as stubborn as anyone he was making fun of.
He is just another talking head.
Keith Olbermann: Cheney Preparing His Defense?
Cheney:
"I told you so. I was right: torture works and Obama is soft on Terror". Cheney will say should another AlCia Attack occurs
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#30395233
Is he capable?
Has motive?
Has the means?
Has money?
His best defense would be attacking?
YESSSS!
Don't forget "So?" and "go fu(k yourself". Those are both excellent defenses.
It has become easy to me and I can prove it by doing it. Anyone proclaiming waterboarding isn't torture should prove it by volunteering to be waterboarded or forever STFU.
because, five miles for me would be torture, but if you can stand it its not torture.
I think it was Hanity that had a similar counter argument. He said something like, He would find water boarding torturous but its part of the training that the military elite (navy seals) goes through. And if our boys can take it so can theirs so its not torture.
"Is '_BLANK__' torture?" is just a smoke screen.
Not torturing is an agreement between enemies. Sets up a situation were combatants are less afraid to surrender. If we treat our captives well then hopefully they will keep our guys well. That's why the US entered into binding agreements not to do it, and why they should not torture. Everything that is and is not torture is already defined in these agreements.
Human rights maybe another reason not to do it, but not a likely concern from a state that uses white phosphorus and DU rounds.
yup!
Back in the 1970s, Senator Frank Church ran a Senate committee that investigated the CIA, FBI and NSA. Covert assassination plots, drug dealing by the CIA in the Golden Triangle, violations of US law by the intelligence agencies, surveillance of private citizens by the US military and intelligence agencies and lack of oversight and accountability were some of the issues addressed.
The Church committees' work resulted in the FISA act and FISA court.
Maybe it's time for another Church committee to deal with torture and adherence to FISA laws.
just talked about the Church committee
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/24/flashba...
I thought Church committees were for arranging bake sales and fetes.
... the same simple and direct truth existed about FISA when the Bush Administration launched their warrantless wiretapping program. The media never recognized that was wrong, either.
And then we had folks like Jane Harman and Steny Hoyer throwing us under the bus, and a guy named Barack Obama voting for a 'compromise' that he could have voted against and it wouldn't have changed a thing.
would obey the rules that came out of a new commission like they obeyed the rules that came out of the Church Commission. That is not at all. The only solution is to put the criminals behind bars!
We already have laws against torture.
Only traitors torture.
Stop calling it waterboarding like surfboarding.
From now on refer to it as the Chinese Water Torture method. It's all in the framing.
Good day.
Get rid of the term "enhanced interogation.
I would if I knew how to pronounce spsde.
spsde: sps' de.
Sounds like another word for extinction.
I am still trying to figure out what they mean by "rendition". I think they mean illegal abduction, or simply KIDNAPPING.
rendition
ren·di·tion [ren dísh’n]
n
1. arts version of musical or theatrical piece: an interpretation or performance of a piece of music or drama
2. literature translation: a translation of a literary work
3. translating: the act of translating something into another language (formal)
4. surrender: a surrender (archaic)
Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2003. © 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
The conservative euphemism for torture by water boarding is "enhanced interrogation techniques."
It's used regularly by the electronic MSM. Probably in their style book.
Kind of like collateral damage
Which makes it sound like defaulting on a bank loan.
..of Rush the other day in the car on "all conservsative all the time 850 KOA" and he said a couple of things before I spewed....
Obama is stupid and is being led around by the nose by anti-American zealots in the admin and Congress. Also
How can waterboarding be torture if you can undergo it 6 times a day for 30 days?
This last comment should have driven off the few remaining non-braindead listeners he had.
I don't know about the fairness doctrine, but we could accomplish much the same thing if our government would strt to break up some of these tele-comm conglomerates. Put competition back into our broadcasts. The 1996 legislation is to blame for a lot of this.
First it was whether "quaint" Geneva conventions applied to "enemy combatants." Common Article 3 does apply, in no uncertain terms, but the "debate" was allowed nonetheless. Those who remembered something from a war movie about spies were encouraged to believe that some classes of people could be denied basic human rights and that that was ok.
Then we "debated" whether "simulated drowning" was torture. Again, there was no real dispute. From The Inquisition to our soldiers in Vietnam, water torture was recognized as, er, torture. We've prosecuted, convicted and punished for water torture; yet we still have a "debate."
Now we have to debate whether increasingly admitted torture was effective. I'm sick and tired of re-debating resolved issues.
Perhaps I'll head on over to a creationist site.
Should we add waterboarding to political debates?
Not to talk about it
But to get where the politicians really stand.
"We weren't briefed! We didn't know!"
Never mind that this has been alleged for months. Congress should have immediately begun an investigation into the allegations.
WERE briefed.
I think they're trying to slip out of all this by saying they were told that Bush Co. MIGHT torture not that they WOULD or DID.
This will probably all end up going down the same trail Clinton traveled with, "That all depends on what the meaning of "is" is.
Force false confessions for unjust wars and invasions.
The Banality of Bush White House Evil
Read all about it: pre-Iraq invasion torture:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26r...
Even worse, Maher later asked "well what about a ticking time bomb scenario" -- uhh what about "torture doesn't work" did you not understand?
The US Government has tortured for decades before Bush Jr. We should never institutionalize it or legalize it.
If Bush, Cheney and his Marxist-Republicans (aka neo-cons) aren't held accountable for their crimes, then Obama will be complicit.
We what CHANGE and we want accountability, indict the torture criminals -- all of them, the CIA guys etc, but punish those who created the policies more so.
Maher likely brought up the "ticking time bomb" scenario because that is a straw man argument used by the pro-torture advocates as a situation that warrants our use of torture.
he wont talk about what happened to him
and he was trained as to what to expect when being tortured
arrest, indict, convict everyone involved
From top to bottom!!! And it needs to happen NOW. And ANYONE who stands in the way of those trials and convictions should be brought up on obstruction charges! This IS serious folks. Torture was and is the greatest national security threat this nation has ever faced! That so many in our own government and intellegence services would be involved in this vicious attack against America and our laws is disgustingly disgraceful!
"It's very annoying that we still have to bring people out to explain over and over again that waterboarding is torture and "torture is bad."
It's a bit more then annoying! It's incredibly disgusting that so many Americans are so mentally impaired as to think for one second that any torture is allowable! And so anti-American/anti-troops that they would ignore our long standing laws against it! And disgraceful that so many of those somehow got into our government and media!!!
i agree. having said that if one voted for BUSH and was/is told that there were NO more attacks on u.s.
soil due to 'enhanced interrogation" most of them are going to stick with that explaination/rationale. these are people that look up to people that believe they know what's good for others. as long as there were TAX breaks and rising financial portfolios the (r) and many others looked the other way. BUSH
and his administration were very successful at taking "the people" out of the process. LOOK at how
they kept the public/media out of Dover when the bodies of killed troops returned from iraq/afghanistan. BUSH was an authoritarian. they had intentions of invading iraq and NO one was going to stop them. they controlled the voice of "the people",lawmakers and the media.
Waterboarding is just harmless beach, Water-fun for Reslugs.
Only totally uneducated, irrational morons, could possibly even remotely believe that waterboarding and other torturing techniques kept us from getting attacked again. Reslugs fools keep forgetting that we were attacked during the Bush administration and they totally fucked that up too.
And while we are at it, could we please consider waterboarding in a context of rape and sodomy...Seymour Hersh:"Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay?"...things like little boys sodomized in front of their mother...all on video...and those guys on the right saying "waterboard me..it's not so bad"...how about we sodomize your little boys, rape your daughters and wives, even you first, before we waterboard you...how would that be? would that be torture?
The very fact that there is any debate in this country as to whether or not water boarding is torture is absolute madness , right wing insanity and evil . I feel nothing but disdain and revulsion towards these rotten freaks , how they can look in the mirror or sleep at night is beyond me .
It's very annoying that we still have to bring people out to explain over and over again that waterboarding is torture and "torture is bad.
That our press and MSM continue to push the right wing meme that torture is ok, is a moral crime in and of itself. If it wasn't for outlets like this, where else would people go to get info?
The "pro-torture" side (their moms must be so proud) use the hypothetical "ticking time-bomb" scenario. So let's counter it with the "cornered enemy" hypothetical:
A defeated enemy, with no supplies or reinforcements, holds out to the last man because they have been brainwashed into believing that prisoners are tortured or forced to submit to cruel "medical experiments". Because they refuse to surrender when their cause is lost, many soldiers on both sides are killed trying to ferret them out; also, hundreds of civilians throw themselves off rocky cliffs to avoid the "cruel invaders". Hundreds of people die, on BOTH SIDES, because one side refused to surrender when their military position was untenable.
Did I say hypothetical? Read the history of Okinawa n WWII.
Words cannot express my gratitude to Bob Baer for his candor and honorable LACK of silence on this matter. He is a great American doing what he can to keep America great. Bob, you drink for free around me!
I'd like to know what kinds of torture we're not being told about.
If they admit to these ones, that are now public record, I hate to imagine which ones are still being kept secret.
If they were doing all these things, I'm sure there are more. Once these sadists are alone in a room, with their captive...
I haven't heard much yet about the captives they slautered with repeated abuse. That's one...
my conclusion:
These guys thought they would get away with the big one!
Closed society.
They were close to declaring marshall law, when thankfully the truth started leaking out. They were about the make prisons a major growth industry within the US.
They almost locked down a classic fascist dictatorship without the classic trapping that we are familiar with. Instead they slithered in silently and wrapped themselves around us while we slept. They came under the guise of holding to American principles.
this is the reason why Nancy Pelosi was to scared to do her job. impeachment off the table, fisa, continued war funding etc.
what's with pelosi here? why's she doing that?
If she went through with impeachment or in general pushed too hard against the bush administration, then bush would declare martial law, attack Iran and dissolve congress.
Ralph Nader: "Things Are a Lot Worse than We Thought!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIO-tCPSfHA&fe...
this shit is nothing new. There are 1000s of years of proof that "government" is evil. Our ancestors were too cowardly to reject it. How about us?
thiers more then enough enabelers in this country who are more the willing to sell out democracy and honest government by following phoney politicians with slogans such as change , encrements of progress , must move on and forget the past ,and if your a nice little toadie ill see yah get a shovel ready job complete with a chinese made shovel to lean on! its the [elmer gantry] syndrome ! the truth is no one importent will suffer because of torture!bet on it!both partys are in it up to thier eye balls!
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