When I merely said that you should try being funny in order to make your "jokes" more effective, you told me it must be "that time of the month." Is that being "nasty", or is that an example of your "evenness"?

Does it make you feel like a more powerful woman to make period references to men?

Spanky said something rather insightful yesterday -- that responding to every post with an accusation of being irrational, or by claiming that you were only making a joke, is a particularly lame way to defend, or divert attention from, a lame comment that you made. You should consider that.

(Oddly enough, he didn't say anything about anatomical references. Kind of a dick move on his part.)

In a nod to the Democrat's friend and ally Fidel Castro, how about we agree to use "papaya" from now on?

Once again, Sgt. Club has it right. Keep on yanking.

Oh, don't be such a whiner.

Some people pay good money for women to slap them around, so suggesting that my wife slapped me doesn't necessarily imply that anything bad happened.

Right? Have I got your "logic" down?

I just don't think Sidd will get the same charge from using it if you do that.

Indeed, he does. He has a sense of humor, some perspective on how unimportant arguments on a chat board really are, and a tremendous lack of arrongance. You should emulate him.

Does suggesting that I am jerking off make you glow in your powerful womanhood? Does it complete you?

I'm not so sure this is accurate.

Funny. I didn't say anything about you masturbating. But I knew you'd go for it.

Poor little turtle's so mixed up, he's forgotten this all got started because he had no sense of humor and got called on it. You can keep trying, but you just keep looking more idiotic. And yes, figuratively speaking, I do rather feel I've got my stiletto in your thigh, and I'd say so except that would probably have a more positive effect on you than I would prefer.

My whole problem with this discussion is the focus on the word torture. It is like people see the issue of, if it is torture it is not OK, and if it is not torture then it is OK.

Water boarding and sleep deprivation or any other coercive techniques that hurts the person is torture.

However, from my point of view, these guys were not wearing uniforms when they were caught, and they are part of organizations that are trying to kill innocent civilians, so if torturing them might have even have a .001 percent of saving an innocent life, then I say - torture away.

It would be nice to believe that we live in a world where torture does not accomplish anything, that way we would not be put into the moral dilemma of having to choose between torturing someone and risking the loss of innocent lives. However, contrary to all the claims to the contrary, torture works.

How can I say this with such confidence even with the all the "experts' saying it doesn't? My uncle was with Military intelligence in Europe and he always told me that if someone was caught by the KGB, they had to assume anything that person knew was in the hands of the KGB. Was this because the KGB was good at tricking their prisoners? Please. During WWII, one of the biggest problems for the French resistance and other resistance groups was that when one of their operatives was captured, the entire organization was exposed. How did the Gestapo so consistently get this information? Did these people really want to reveal who their comrades were even though revealing their identities would mean almost certain death? How did the Gestapo so consistently get this information from detainees? Water boarding?

As WWII went on the underground organizations learned to limit every operative’s knowledge of the organization. They usually limited their contacts to two people and then used assumed names. But if information derived from torture was so unreliable, then why did they have to go through all that effort to hide people’s identities? Would these guys just divulge this information when being caught before they were tortured? I know that the French are wimps, but please.

John McCain said over and over again, that you can’t fault prisoners under torture for talking. Tons of his colleagues in prison gave up much more than name, rank and serial number. And the information they gave up was factual and reliable. Did they do this because they were promised a good meal or a Thai massage?

The only way these terrorists groups can operated is through secrecy. If they can't operate in secret they can't kill civilians; so one of the best ways to defeat them is to find out their secrets.

If you think torture is so morally reprehensible, it shouldn't be used, even if it use will save innocent lives. Fine. But don't try and pretend that torture can't be used effectively to get information from people that are reluctant to give it up. In addition, don't try and tell me one of Al Queda's biggest vulnerabilities is not being exposed by their captured operatives. One of the most effective ways to stop them from killing more innocent people is our getting their secrets out of their captured operatives.

No amount of wishful thinking and PC double talk is going to change that reality

Ah. Yanking was a reference to my favorite baseball team, right?





Christ -- you really are a cunt. Welcome to Ignore.

Finally!

:kisscheek

You should be less smug about how this exchange is making you look too (hint: not as great as you think).

I'm quite sure. But I also know who is right, and who is wrong, and, unlike Sidd, I've been grinning my way through it, so I really don't much care.

The reason people say torture doesn't work is the massive risk of the false positive not concern about that false negative.

Also, it is nice to know that torture innocent people doesn't bother you, as long as they are not in uniform.

Moreover, I think you vastly over estimate the number of circumstances in which innocent lives are so imminently at stake that torture can save them.

Finally, didn't we just get done talking about drawing sweeping conclusions from anecdotal evidence?

The problem with torture is that you tend to get a lot of false information, too. And a lot of information from people who don't really know anything.

You point out in your post that the French found lots of ways to deal with the fact that Nazis would torture resistance fighters. These ways were quite effective -- even after years of Nazi occupation, the resistance was active (didn't Eisenhower say that they were worth 5 divisions on D-Day?). Why do you think al Qaeda would not take similar measures?

As with most things, torture may bring benefits -- improved intelligence -- but also have costs. How badly did US conduct at Abu Ghraib affect popular opinion towards the US in Iraq?

And using torture in a situation like Iraq inevitably leads to torturing innocent people. It's not like our intelligence is so good that we only torture the al Qaeda members -- the experience of keeping an FBI informant imprisoned for 3 months proves that, as does simple logic (if our ability to pick out al Qaeda operatives were really all that good, would we need torture? Would we be where we are now?) This contrasts pretty sharply with the situation in Vietnam -- your McCain reference. The North Vietnamese did not capture a lot -- or any -- American civilians. Every person was a soldier, every one had some intelligence value (at least arguably).

In contrast, we have captured many thousands of innocent Iraqis in large-scale sweeps. (Your argument that "these guys" -- all US detainees in Iraq -- were soldiers not in uniform is simply wrong). Harsh interrogation of those people, many of whom were not enemies of the US before, turns them into likely enemies (and their families, friends, etc.)

And, finally, using the methods of our enemies damages our moral standing, which is important in this war.

We are not talking about torturing bin Laden (at least I'm not -- others may have brighter lines). We're talking about the systematic use of torture in US military prisons. I believe that the costs vastly outweigh the benefits.

I apologize, of course, for relying merely on what experts have said (and a few POWs I've heard speak), and not having solid anecdotes from my uncle to back them up.