Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (18703)	12/8/2007 4:26:18 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224756

Dobbs accuses both political parties of selling out the best interest of US citizens to global corporations.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (18703)	12/9/2007 3:05:44 PM
From: jlallen	Respond to of 224756

lol Torture President? How freakin' dumb are you?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (18703)	12/9/2007 4:32:31 PM
From: jlallen	Respond to of 224756

What does Dobbs say about the Torture Congresscritters??? Report: Top Members of Congress Were OK With Waterboarding in 2002 Sunday, December 09, 2007 WASHINGTON — Four top members of Congress, including now-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, got a close look at CIA overseas detention sites and interrogation techniques in September 2002 and offered no challenge to their legitimacy, according to a news article out Sunday. On the contrary, at least two lawmakers involved in the briefing that day questioned whether the CIA was pushing hard enough, even after hearing the details of the now widely criticized technique known as waterboarding, two U.S. officials told The Washington Post. "The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," one official is quoted saying. Click here to read The Washington Post article. A virtual tour of the sites given by the CIA was among 30 private briefings with key legislative leaders during the 2002-2003 era when waterboarding was used. At the time, only one objection — filed by then-House Intelligence Committee Ranking Democrat Jane Harman — was made. Waterboarding has since become the pariah of interrogation techniques. On Friday, Attorney General Michael Mukasey agreed to launch an inquiry into the 2005 destruction of tapes of CIA interrogators performing waterboarding on high value detainees. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," Porter Goss, a former CIA director and congressman who chaired the House intelligence panel at the time of the briefings, told The Post. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement." Congressional officials have argued that the inability of the group to write notes or consult legal experts because of the secrecy factor hurt lawmakers' ability to challenge the practices being explained at the time. An official who discussed the details noted that the briefings took place while the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks were still fresh in lawmakers' minds. "People were still in a panic. ... But there was no objecting, no hand-wringing." By 2005 when the issue of waterboarding, or simulated drowning, became public, the CIA had already stopped the practice known to have been performed on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who helped plan the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and Abu Zubaydah, a senior Al Qaeda member.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (18703)	12/10/2007 9:32:04 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224756

Would you prefer to see thousands of Americans die rather than cause discomfort to one terrorist? Take the following news report with a grain of salt. ABC has reported faulty information in the past: >A retired CIA agent who led the team that interrogated a key Al Qaeda operative early in the war on terror told ABC News that a technique commonly known as waterboarding was torture, but necessary. According to the ABC News report, John Kiriakou, the CIA officer whose team captured Al Qaeda Chief Abu Zubaydah, said his team subjected Zubaydah to waterboarding, and that the technique "broke" the terror leader in "less than 35 seconds." In the report, set to air Monday on ABC's "World News With Charles Gibson" and "Nightline," Kiriakou said he believes waterboarding is torture, but said the need for intelligence that would help prevent future attacks justified the technique. "The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks," Kiriakou said of the information Zubaydah provided. "What happens if we don't waterboard a person, and we don't get that nugget of information, and there's an attack," Kiriakou said. "I would have trouble forgiving myself." The CIA secretly recorded the interrogation of Zubaydah, then destroyed the tapes. Kiriakou told ABC he had no idea that the CIA was taping the session, or that the tape had been destroyed. In response to Kiriakou's statements, the CIA issued a statement to ABC, stating in part, "the United States does not conduct or condone torture. The CIA's terrorist interrogation effort has always been small, carefully run, lawful and highly productive."

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (18703)	12/11/2007 6:57:07 AM
From: tonto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224756

A former CIA officer who participated in the capture and questioning of the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to be waterboarded said yesterday that the harsh technique provided an intelligence breakthrough that "probably saved lives," but that he now regards the tactic as torture. Zayn Abidin Muhammed Hussein abu Zubaida, the first high-ranking al-Qaeda member captured after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, broke in less than a minute after he was subjected to the technique and began providing interrogators with information that led to the disruption of several planned attacks, said John Kiriakou, who served as a CIA interrogator in Pakistan. Abu Zubaida was one of two detainees whose interrogation was captured in video recordings that the CIA later destroyed. The recent disclosure of the tapes' destruction ignited a recent furor on Capitol Hill and allegations that the agency tried to hide evidence of illegal torture. Story continues below ?advertisement "It was like flipping a switch," said Kiriakou, the first former CIA employee directly involved in the questioning of "high-value" al-Qaeda detainees to speak publicly. In an interview, Kiriakou said he did not witness Abu Zubaida's waterboarding but was part of the interrogation team that questioned him in a hospital in Pakistan for weeks after his capture in that country in the spring of 2002. He described Abu Zubaida as ideologically zealous, defiant and uncooperative — until the day in mid-summer when his captors strapped him to a board, wrapped his nose and mouth in cellophane and forced water into his throat in a technique that simulates drowning. 35 seconds before breakdown The waterboarding lasted about 35 seconds before Abu Zubaida broke down, according to Kiriakou, who said he was given a detailed description of the incident by fellow team members. The next day, Abu Zubaida told his captors he would tell them whatever they wanted, Kiriakou said. "He said that Allah had come to him in his cell and told him to cooperate, because it would make things easier for his brothers," Kiriakou said. Kiriakou's remarks came a day before top CIA officials are to appear before a closed congressional hearing to account for the decision to destroy recordings of the interrogations of Abu Zubaida and another senior captive, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Last Thursday, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden announced that the recordings were destroyed in