CIA Director John Brennan told NBC News in an exclusive interview that his agency will not engage in harsh "enhanced interrogation" practices, including waterboarding, which critics call torture — even if ordered to by a future president.

"I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and techniques I've heard bandied about because this institution needs to endure," Brennan said.

In the "ticking time bomb" scenario, they will water board because they know it has, and can, work.

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I will listen to the person in charge of it Jack and not made up bs.

as a device to obtain information.  

         The extent to which waterboarding, or other forms of torture  “work,” depends on the subject and the degree of pain inflicted. So it is ridiculous to say that “waterboarding doesn’t work” as a blanket statement. But what we need to do is to make torture “legal” – or subject to standards - in the ticking bomb type of case where the government meets a very igh standard that the suspect has critical information, rather than Bush admin' s preference that the CIA engage in a fishing expedition and do it secretly and illegally a la the Bush CIA

a confession from a suspect by questioning?  Do they say – you can go now? They always vet the confession with further questions that the suspect should be able to answer. If you place a bomb in an airport trashcan, you ought to be able to remember the color and shape of the can.

        And no one contends that torture necessarily discloses 100% true  information.  A lot of lies were told during the Spanish Inquisition. But it is a tool that should be available to LE in a true ticking bomb kind of case, so long as it is subject to standards, such as statutory limitations and getting a warrant to torture from the FISA court. This keeps torture from being a 4th amend violation.

         Would you really decline to use this tool in a ticking bomb case just bc sometimes it does not work and sometimes it elicits false information

Human beings react to different stimuli. Some are motivated and repond well to positive reinforcement, some won't. Some will give up accurate info in a heart beat when pressured/tortured, others won't give up shit. To make blanket statements like "torture doesnt work" is either knee jerk political in nature or a fundamental lack of understanding the human race.

Alan Dershowitz has commented on this on numerous occasions and lists many examples of torture working in history. He said the French Resistance gave up friends and family at the hands of the Nazis and that the British Navy would torture German captured submariners who gave them accurate info on account of it.

Now we don't want some PFC in the army haphazardly torturing anyone on the battle field. It should be done by professionals from a direct order from the POTUS in only the rarest of cases, with court approval, if there is time.

If there is not enough time for judicial review, then the POTUS should make his case to the American people after the fact, and it then becomes a political matter and a potential ground for impeachment.  

There was virtually zero interest from Obama Inc to go after Bush. I mean how could they when Obama's own people and other Dem appointees were telling him it works??

even the lib creators of the flick agreed that waterboarding led directly to finding Bin Laden.  it REALLY pissed Obama since he gave his pals access to classified info to make the film - remember?

Obama is secretly glad they made KSM and his 2 pals sniff a bit of Perrier

Obama now just blows them up without gaining valuable humint.  he might release more from GITMO than he kills

at the time Brennan was part of the waterboarding brigade himself

libs need to wake the fuck up and smell the cordite

-- Modified on 4/11/2016 10:11:47 PM

I am sure it will change your closed mind.

There we learned for the first time that the Bush admin torture program was much worse than previously disclosed, including rectal feeding of detainees. But I don’t think it is accurate to say that the DOJ had no enthusiasm to prosecute because the torture program “worked.”  The facts are bitterly disputed on this point- the CIA said its torture DID produce significant useful intel while the Senate report concluded that most of the torture did not and instead produced false information.  

       We will never know the true facts on this, just as we will never know the true facts on Obama drone strikes.

         But remember, while Mr. Obama properly (I think) declined to prosecute line officers who “tortured” within the legal guidelines provided by Mr. Yoo and other Bush lawyers, the DOJ did investigate 100 cases where the line officers allegedly exceeded the legal guidelines. Mr. Holder ultimately concluded that there was not enough evidence to convict and closed the investigations. Did the admin lean on him? Probably, but not bc the torture "worked."  These methods have been declared illegal by the President

You seem to be missing, the point a lot on this subject.
 

the Boston Marathon bombers, the Unabomber, the LaGuardia bombing, the United Airlines bombing, the Continental airlines bombing, the Martin Luther King parade bomb (which did not go off), the abortion clinic bomb, the Times Square Bomb, the Underwear Bomber, the Shoe Bomber, the Senate bombing, the …

        Wait… is Goldfinger about to start? Gotta go

and your bets on BAC, and every other investment you have made in the last decade or so.

and since when does the POTUS or anyone else from the executive branch "declare" anything illegal. No wonder BPS calls you a fake lawyer, even a layperson as ill informed as Laffy knows the difference between our three branches of government.  

If you don't recall, I told you years ago there would be no prosecutions for "war crimes"where it came to the Bush administration, the same way I told you to dump your BAC stock and I told you Rick Perry was not going to face trial. You are the most consistently wrong person ever to have posted on this board, even Choosy looks like a great prognosticator compared to you.

dumbass

I'm just curious how many of you true blood partisan hacks would not offer to do a complete 180 degree turn on your partisan views under extreme torture

Ask anyone who has gone throught survival training. It is mainly used by the boy scouts and some college frat houses.
Real torture takes place outside our boarders in "Black-States".

you are as knee-jerk a lib as they make.  YOU calling someone a partisan hack is fucking hilarious!

your views are absolutely consistent with the soldier-spitting, America hating lefties

sniffing Perrier (flat please) ain't torture much less extreme torture

you clearly don't understand how WB was used and how they used the info to GET BIN LADEN - but as a lefty, you are probably mad that we DID get him

but I say let's try your theory on a lib

do you volunteer?

Have you forgotten your own question?

“And how many of these guys "place bombs" instead of using a suicide vest?”  
 

       So far, the use of suicide vests has not been a problem in the United States, although I suspect that is coming. But it does not make any difference whether a suicide vest is used, or a bomb is placed.

         You are drifting away from the topic but I will refocus you. Think of it this way. We capture a known terrorist. When we search his apartment, we find four suicide vests in various stages of completion and realize the terrorist is making these vests. On his computer, we find evidence that two completed suicide vests were picked up the day before by two men.

     What does LE do?
(1) Under the criminal law approach, they can only question him and must leave him alone if he refuses to talk.
(2) Under the current Obama Homeland Security approach, a HS team goes in first to  question him and to use all interrogation techniques permitted by the Army Field Manual, or whatever they are using these days – but no torture.
(3) Or, as I propose, if  (2) does not work, they apply for a warrant to torture from the FISA court.

        Let’s look at all of your objections.
“Torture does not work. He won’t say anything.”
Perhaps, but that’s true under methods (1) and (2) as well.
“He will talk but he’ll give false information.”
Perhaps, but that’s true under methods (1) and (2) as well.

 
        So you have not articulated a reason not to do it.  Maybe it works on this particular individual and two mass tragedies are averted.  The only downside I see is the vest maker gets tortured. But the statute makes it legal and the warrant makes it constitutional. Plus, if torture does not work on this bomb maker, I am happy for the next bomb maker to know what lies in store for him if he’s caught

-- Modified on 4/12/2016 11:20:09 AM

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