Haha Michael Scheuer referred to as "hard right Neocon" by Chris Matthews

[Chieftain1776]

I guess it's because Scheuer, like me (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=189782), dissents from Ron Paul with the willingness to have the option to "torture". I'll post the video when it's up on MSNBC.

Here's the Op-Ed Hardball talked about.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403459.html?nav=hcmoduletmv

Update: And here's the video:

@6:28 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697#30441469

[paulitics]

Scheuer may not be a neocon, but he is dead wrong on torture.

[ClayTrainor]

I would like to hear Scheuer's argument in support of torture.

[Cowlesy]

It sounds like he does not believe waterboarding is torture. I don't know, is it?

My thoughts on this are jaded after reading a story last night about Russian deathsquads recently have done to Chechen rebels. The stories from the article are almost indescribable.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6168959.ece

I do not believe in torture, but after reading that article, it makes you take a step back and wonder if waterboarding is really torture.

I don't know.

[Chieftain1776]

I added the video in the original post^


I would like to hear Scheuer's argument in support of torture.

I think he and I might be on the same page but I don't know. While I'm still open to change here's my approach:

They are an enemy with which we are at war. If they were a signatory to the Geneva Conventions then, by our own law, we would be prohibited from torturing them. They aren't a signatory and chop off heads so they are open game for whatever. That said, I believe we can only go after them for information and should punish anyone who does it for sadistic or other reasons.

As I linked to the thread/poll above I think the debate over "What is torture?" is misplaced. If you coerce a prisoner beyond the amount necessary to keep them imprisoned... that's my definition of torture. If it means a caterpillar in a cell or water boarding it's still torture. I approve of it but it's still torture.

If you want to influence their behavior without torture then you have something similar to a plea bargain where you bribe them somehow. It kind of gets back to the war vs police action debate.

Though it's fuzzy if torture is currently against US law then the law should be followed and the people who broke the law should be punished.

[angelatc]

I do not believe in torture, but after reading that article, it makes you take a step back and wonder if waterboarding is really torture.

I don't know.

If it isn't torture, then what's the point?

[sdczen]

To me this report seems to be selectively choosing what Scheuer has stated. Matthews will take every opportunity to jump on anyone that he can even remotely link to a Hard Right Neocon, even if it patently false.

It's frustrating to see our media and many of the arm-chair-quarterbacks debate a symptom, or a unintended consequence of our poor foreign policy decisions. It's like arguing the false notion of run-away Capitalism and 'how' is supposedly crashed our economy.

These debates on what defines torture, or when torture is a 'moral' solution is nothing more than placing the cart before the horse. If our foreign policy was that of an non-interventionist sort, then would terrorism from the Al Qaeda types really be that much of a threat? I believe we've all but established it's our foreign policy is the root of our problems. But now we're arguing why a bureaucratic/fascist Government is doing everything in it's power to maintain it's dominance in the world. This is what aggressive governments do, they always grow and become more abusive to maintain the status quo.

While, I wholeheartedly disagree with torture of any kind. I also understand when a country gets so far down the road of moral decay that it accelerates & compounds the decay in order to survive. This is all a distraction of a "New, kinder & gentler country at war". None of this will stop until our foreign policy changes completely. Change you can believe in? Nope, just change in facade.

[KoldKut]

...

[He Who Pawns]

To call Scheuer a"Neocon" is like calling Nancy Pelosi a "conservative" -- it's the exact opposite of the truth. Scheuer has been a lone voice of reason against the Neocons and their Israel-first agenda.

I think Scheuer is arguing here is the same exact thing many of us have -- that torture DOES work. Now, whether it should be used is another question. In Scheuer's scenario of bin Laden himself sitting in an interrogation room with knowledge of a pending nuclear explosion in a major American city that is about to kill millions of people, I doubt there are many of us who care if bin Laden got waterboarded or even beaten to a pulp. There should be laws against it, but some laws have to be broken in very, very rare situations. If the President later wants to pardon the Jack Bauer type agent who waterboarded bin Laden, then that's fine with me, under the very narrow scenario that Scheuer laid out.

[ClayTrainor]

To call Scheuer a"Neocon" is like calling Nancy Pelosi a "conservative" -- it's the exact opposite of the truth. Scheuer has been a lone voice of reason against the Neocons and their Israel-first agenda.

I think Scheuer is arguing here is the same exact thing many of us have -- that torture DOES work. Now, whether it should be used is another question. In Scheuer's scenario of bin Laden himself sitting in an interrogation room with knowledge of a pending nuclear explosion in a major American city that is about to kill millions of people, I doubt there are many of us who care if bin Laden got waterboarded or even beaten to a pulp. There should be laws against it, but some laws have to be broken in very, very rare situations. If the President later wants to pardon the Jack Bauer type agent who waterboarded bin Laden, then that's fine with me, under the very narrow scenario that Scheuer laid out.

This makes sense to me. There is some true value in your posts, when you ditch the mockery :cool: :p

[Mini-Me]

It sounds like he does not believe waterboarding is torture. I don't know, is it?

My thoughts on this are jaded after reading a story last night about Russian deathsquads recently have done to Chechen rebels. The stories from the article are almost indescribable.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6168959.ece

I do not believe in torture, but after reading that article, it makes you take a step back and wonder if waterboarding is really torture.

I don't know.

I stand opposed to all forms of torture, including those which some hand-wave with the "enhanced interrogation tactics" euphemism. That said, I do think two distinctions should be made which, combined, categorize types of torture into four major sets. These two distinctions are:
First, there is torture which inflicts temporary pain but leaves no lasting physical marks, and there is torture which permanently disables or disfigures a person. The difference between the two is not only a difference of degree but a difference of principle, and obviously, the latter form of torture is far more gruesome, unconscionable, and unforgivable.
Also, there is widespread, systematic, institutionalized torture, and there is torture committed by rogue agents who act at their own risk. In the first category, the law itself (or at least the government) condones torture committed by the government, and the torture itself is committed by virtually invincible government agents who are immune from prosecution. This obviously opens up tons of opportunities for abuse: The "blank check" involved, combined with the secrecy of operations, enables agents to torture for whatever reasons they damn well please. This virtually guarantees that innocent people will be tortured and that genuinely time-critical scenarios will only comprise a small portion of the instances of torture (aside from the fact that torture is usually only good at extracting bad info, i.e. what the torturer wants to hear and anything that will make the pain stop). It also provides a great career path for psychopaths and other sickos. In the second category of torture, we have rogue agents acting on their own prerogatives who - at great personal risk to their own jobs and/or liberty - decide to torture someone for information in a time-critical scenario. These kind of agents may be willing to face a jury of their peers after the dust settles, but at the moment, they've decided the potential good they might do by "going rogue" is worth laying it all on the line. Right or wrong, this takes a serious personal commitment, and agents would only take these kind of risks when there's something genuinely major at stake. (I'm oversimplifying here by dividing the types of torturers into only two categories, since other "lone wolf" categories include a. people who lose control for emotional reasons, and b. sickos who torture for fun and avoid taking responsibility.)

In America, we currently institutionalize only the less-permanently-damaging form of torture (as far as we know), whereas Russia institutionalizes torture bordering on the worst of the worst, along with wholesale mass murder of the torture victims. On the one hand, there's an obvious separation between America and Russia, and that's something to be thankful for...but on the other hand, the brutality of the Russia/Chechnya situation is only a small hop away. When you read that article, did it not seem as though the torturers on each side conducted something of a "torture arms race," one-upping each other in brutality? Just like the Israelis and Palestinians, and just like the US government and vaguely-defined terrorists, the Russians and Chechens did not start chopping off each others' limbs overnight. They gradually built up to that level of brutality over years and years of hating each other and dehumanizing each other...and this kind of atmosphere bred (and attracted) people on both sides who actually enjoyed it: consider the Chech rebel who laughed at a 12-year-old-girl who was raped and had three of her fingers shot off, and consider the Russian torturer who wanted to take home a necklace of enemy ears.

When our government tortures, it only further enrages our enemies and validates their cause in the eyes of their neighbors...and although groups like Al Qaeda are already willing to torture and are already way over-the-edge when it comes to brutality (recall videos of decapitation), every brutal policy the US government practices will only drive more and more people to the cause of terrorists. Simply put, condoning and institutionalizing any form of torture causes and exacerbates blowback...and when both "sides" are stupid enough to fuel the flames over a long enough period of years, you inevitably end up with people inflicting horrific suffering on each other, Second Chechen War style.

That said, now that I mentioned blowback, it comes back to everything sdczen said above me:

To me this report seems to be selectively choosing what Scheuer has stated. Matthews will take every opportunity to jump on anyone that he can even remotely link to a Hard Right Neocon, even if it patently false.

It's frustrating to see our media and many of the arm-chair-quarterbacks debate a symptom, or a unintended consequence of our poor foreign policy decisions. It's like arguing the false notion of run-away Capitalism and 'how' is supposedly crashed our economy.

These debates on what defines torture, or when torture is a 'moral' solution is nothing more than placing the cart before the horse. If our foreign policy was that of an non-interventionist sort, then would terrorism from the Al Qaeda types really be that much of a threat? I believe we've all but established it's our foreign policy is the root of our problems. But now we're arguing why a bureaucratic/fascist Government is doing everything in it's power to maintain it's dominance in the world. This is what aggressive governments do, they always grow and become more abusive to maintain the status quo.

While, I wholeheartedly disagree with torture of any kind. I also understand when a country gets so far down the road of moral decay that it accelerates & compounds the decay in order to survive. This is all a distraction of a "New, kinder & gentler country at war". None of this will stop until our foreign policy changes completely. Change you can believe in? Nope, just change in facade.

[TheConstitutionLives]

I would like to hear Scheuer's argument in support of torture.

- I support torture but ONLY if it were legal, which is SHOULD be. War is a NASTY thing. Torture is not a reliable means for acquiring information but WAR means all rules are out the door. America, being a sovereign country, should not be held to International rules like the treaties and Geneva Conventions we've signed. Since we've signed them saying we will not torture Bush and anyone involved should be punished. But, again, torture should not be "illegal" b/c WAR is WAR. There should not be RULES for war. That's dumb. It's a war!

If we have legitimate reasons to go to war then we should go into it with ALL options on the table, even nukes. Kick their tail and come home. Torture or whatever. But for us to be able to do that we would have to repeal any laws or rules we've agreed to FIRST. I think this is Scheuer's official position.

[HenryKnoxFineBooks]

If we can torture in war, and it is renamed "enhanced Interrogation", it will soon be acceptable to "enhanced interrogate" suspected murderers, or, far right extremists, such as 2nd Amendment supportors, life to righters, and supporters of the Constitution.

This is not a road we do not want to go down. If torture gives us twice the info, lets not do it, and double the size of the CIA instead...

[HenryKnoxFineBooks]

- America, being a sovereign country, should not be held to International rules like the treaties and Geneva Conventions we've signed.


This makes absolutely no sense.

[TheConstitutionLives]

This makes absolutely no sense.

- You're not making sense

[Liberty Star]

Chris is being an idiot.

[Jace]

...

[brandon]

Sheuer believes that when a war is waged, one should do everything one can to win it as quickly as possible. If that means massive civilian deaths, nuclear bombs, or torture, Sheuer is for it.

At the same time he believes we should only fight a war when it is absolutely necessary.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think he's probably right. I mean, did Sun Tzu have a chapter in his book about how to minimize collateral damage? I think not.

[Zolah]

It sounds like he does not believe waterboarding is torture. I don't know, is it?

Sorry for bypassing the rest of your post, but I'll raise a point on this sentence quickly ^

Is waterboarding torture? Japan used waterboarding on captured American soldiers during WW2, and America sentenced those that used waterboarding to death because of their actions. If waterboarding was a crime punishable by death according to 1940s America, why is waterboarding absolutely fine to do in 2000s America - I would say the regime in charge in 2000s America was corrupt and that it's obviously not "okay" to use waterboarding, I do consider it torture.

I nearly drowned once in my life, I still think about it now and again, it was one of the most horrible experiences in my life. Khaled Sheikh Muhamed was waterboarded ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FOUR times. The only way I can imagine is that is by taking my own experience of nearly drowning and having it happen every day for 174 days in a row. That constitutes torture in my book.



I agree with the original poster and Scheuer. Everyone knows that torture works. If torture didn't work to make people reveal secrets then we wouldn't even be having this debate.

Torture does not work, if you applied simulated drowning to me 174 times I would confess to whatever the hell you wanted me to confess to, I made a similar post recently in a different thread. Torture does not work, because people will say anything to make it stop. The assertion that "everyone knows torture works" is also preposterous.

[KoldKut]

...

[Athan]

matthews is an idiot that doesn't even know what a neo-con is.