Al-Qaeda Torture Manual

[spuriousmonkey]

I dunno. What do you do when you need the info but the bad people won't give it up cheerfully? Do you go without?

Oh, the answer to that is rather easy.

Yes, I will go without that particular set of information.


What I would do was not to fund terrorist organization that will later turn to be our enemies.

I would not go to another region of the world and create death and destruction, and a whole new generation of enemies.

I would not go to a random country to fight terrorism when I can do is more easily by disbanding the CIA and other intelligence agencies that have created the terrorists.

If I had failed to do all that, I would invest heavily in the Intelligence and diplomacy. I would reach out to my enemies and make concessions. That would not be difficult unless you have aspirations other than creating enemies.

I would admit my faults. I would ask for forgiveness from the people that I put through hell.

Support for terrorist organizations would die out.

Nobody with a future supports terrorism.

 

[GeoffP]

Want them to win? You can read my mind?

Tell me, how the fuck can a terrorist organisation win against Western civilisation - rotfl. I can't believe you buy that bullshit.

How can 3000 people change the politics of a nation?

How can a few thousand terrorists influence an election?

How can religious extremists assume power?

Gee, it's hard to imagine.

 

[GeoffP]

Oh, the answer to that is rather easy.

Yes, I will go without that particular set of information.

Well, that's interesting. I suppose it rears up the "human lives paradox" or whatever, where one is forced to choose between torture and the deaths of large numbers of people. It doesn't seem logical to err on the side of incaution when human lives are concerned; but that of course would depend on the level of surity one has.

What I would do was not to fund terrorist organization that will later turn to be our enemies.

Agreed. But no one rationally sees that far ahead. Maybe they should have. Don't know.

I would not go to another region of the world and create death and destruction, and a whole new generation of enemies.

Agreed - but Saddam would have nukes by now. Cheap knock-offs from North Korea. I don't know what the problem with East Korean nukes is.

I would not go to a random country to fight terrorism when I can do is more easily by disbanding the CIA and other intelligence agencies that have created the terrorists.

Well, all nations have some kind of intelligence apparatus. Disbanding is a possibility, but no nation goes without. Was the CIA call wrong, or poorly motivated?

If I had failed to do all that, I would invest heavily in the Intelligence and diplomacy. I would reach out to my enemies and make concessions. That would not be difficult unless you have aspirations other than creating enemies.

All right: which concessions? What would your enemies learn about you by your making concessions? Would you make them all the time, or not?

I would admit my faults. I would ask for forgiveness from the people that I put through hell.

Definitely.

Support for terrorist organizations would die out.

Nobody with a future supports terrorism.

Maybe - and maybe not. Terrorism has been around a long time. No nation that supports terrorism has ever actually fallen. Well...except Iraq and the USSR, actually.

 

[GeoffP]

*Sniff*

I smell cigar.

"Ah - did not - have sexual relations with that woman....that woman over there. Now that one, ah did have sexual relations with. Did that one too. And her, just now, in the closet. *heh heh* Oh yeah."

If we're not, who is going to save us from ourselves?

If we're not, how can we say they are wrong in their actions and take a moral high ground?

I suppose. But the Roman model suggests civilizations fall when their own liberties take precedence over the persistence of the nation-state - as logic dictates they would. Maybe this is where my communism kicks in.

Ergo we should not be acting in a manner that proves them right.

Thinking about this, I don't know. I mean, who has - in the history of mankind - ever changed their mind about anything on the basis of debate? Think about it. Who have you convinced, personally, of anything? Ever. Me: almost no one. Would radicals be convinced of anything?

Torture is only a means by which we get the 'enemy' to tell us what we want to hear. After days of being tortured, the prisoner will say anything to get you to stop. Hardly reliable.

True enough. I don't see why sodium pentothol just isn't used. Don't know much about it.

 

[Ghost_007]

How can 3000 people change the politics of a nation?

How can a few thousand terrorists influence an election?

How can religious extremists assume power?

Gee, it's hard to imagine.

* snore *

Cut the rhetoric man.

You're not looking at the bigger picture. This bullshit didn't kick off with 9/11, it was going on well before. The US has been meddling about in the Muslim World and other regions for donkeys years. The US has supported dictatorships, supported terrorist groups, even now the US is supporting 'terrorist groups', just like they did in Afghanistan. The fucking hypocrites.

 

[GeoffP]

Anyway, I have a paper to write so I have to run for a bit. Sorry. I'll let you guys overcome your shock and arrange your crushing responses to my ill-chosen words. Back later on.

 

[GeoffP]

* snore *

Cut the rhetoric man.

You're not looking at the bigger picture. This bullshit didn't kick off with 9/11, it was going on well before. The US has been meddling about in the Muslim World and other regions for donkeys years. The US has supported dictatorships, supported terrorist groups, even now the US is supporting 'terrorist groups', just like they did in Afghanistan. The fucking hypocrites.

The 3000 people referred to Nazi Germany, not the Middle East. Can you follow how small groups can change the will of nation-states with political action and rhetoric?

As for supporting terrorists: an old game, and not strictly the Americans'. Not in the slightest. I agree that the bullshit kicked off long before 9/11, of course.

 

[iceaura]

Maybe - and maybe not. Terrorism has been around a long time. No nation that supports terrorism has ever actually fallen.

Iran. Romania. Hitler's Germany and Mussollini's Italy. France - the Old Monarchy. The Roman Empire (which did not succumb to an excess of liberty,btw).

Until recently, terrorism was a function of state, commonly - in the normal use of the word. States had "Reigns of Terror" and tyrants ruled by it. A terrorist was commonly and normally an employee of the local government. This recent restriction of the definition to stateless organizations is an odd and oddly manipulative bit of news-managing.

We have a situation in which a state becomes a terrorist state not by terrorizing its citizenry, as before, but only by supporting one of those stateless terrorist organizations. And not even all of them qualify - the US supports the MEK, and supported AQ and the Taliban, but the US is not a terrorist state by the new definition.

So "terrorists" in Columbia are not the police or the Guard, regardless of what they do, but rebels against the official government, even if they attack only the police or the Guard.

Odd.

I mean, who has - in the history of mankind - ever changed their mind about anything on the basis of debate? Think about it. Who have you convinced, personally, of anything? Ever. Me: almost no one. Would radicals be convinced of anything?

Yet in biographies, and in memories I'll bet, we have many examples of people changing their minds about something. And not only religious conversions, but piolitical issues, have been involved. If not for debates and the like, how does taht happen?

That is, do you think Thomas Paine had no influence on people's convictions, back when? If Juan Cole's efforts to get the Federalist Papers translated into Farsi and Arabic are successful, and widely distributed in the Middle East, would you be surprised to see them have an effect after a while ?

 

[GeoffP]

Iran. Romania. Hitler's Germany and Mussollini's Italy. France - the Old Monarchy. The Roman Empire (which did not succumb to an excess of liberty,btw).

I don't think any of these nations supported "terrorism" in the modern sense of the word, though. There was client warring from Rome, I suppose, but it's not what did them in (importing Lombard troops did). I'm referring to external terrorism rather than state terrorism per se - and lots of countries still employ that. I tend to think that Orwell was right and that the boot could never be lifted internally - "look not to the proles" or somesuch. The Russians fell because of a historical accident and decades of external economic pressure.

We have a situation in which a state becomes a terrorist state not by terrorizing its citizenry, as before, but only by supporting one of those stateless terrorist organizations. And not even all of them qualify - the US supports the MEK, and supported AQ and the Taliban, but the US is not a terrorist state by the new definition.

I suppose not - yet they do employ a bit themselves, or so I'm told. I really think the term should more apply to pressure applied externally and outside normal channels of law or influence. For internal oppression, the word "fascism" strikes me as sufficient. Or "domestic terrorism", or "oppression". What do you think of that?

Odd.
Yet in biographies, and in memories I'll bet, we have many examples of people changing their minds about something. And not only religious conversions, but piolitical issues, have been involved. If not for debates and the like, how does taht happen?

That is, do you think Thomas Paine had no influence on people's convictions, back when? If Juan Cole's efforts to get the Federalist Papers translated into Farsi and Arabic are successful, and widely distributed in the Middle East, would you be surprised to see them have an effect after a while ?

Maybe, but only if you get them young. The elders have no interest in allowing that to happen, of course; and what doctrine of anything beats all tribalist impulses at all levels?

Thanks for the interesting post.