Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling for January 18, 2013

So this twit thinks using prisoners to gain info is bogus? How naive can he get, get your liberal head out of the sand.

Every prisoner is used for information, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. It is the use of torture that is morally wrong and usually useless.

The best information we got from prisoners in custody occurred when agents acted as if they had befriended them and sympathized with them. Information obtained under torture is crap because people will say anything to make the pain stop.

If you haven’t seen Zero Dark Thirty yet, here’ how it played out (to the best of my recollection):

We see a detainee being subjected to “enhanced interrogation” techniques (there is mention of other detainees, but we see only one in detail), including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, locking in a tiny box, electroshock, and (yes) exposing him naked to the gaze of a woman (it’s a mix of physical and psychological methods; some believe the distiction between the two is major, some minor).

At one point, the CIA has received information that an attack somewhere is imminent, but they don’t have enough details to prepare for it. They try to get these details from the abovementioned detainee, but fail, and he passes out in the process. The attack (on a London bus) occurs. Since the detainee has no contact with outside news, the interrogators TELL him that he broke before he passed out and that he gave them enough information to prevent that attack, and then they use that leverage to get him to fill in some “little details.” If the process is a really intense version of “good cop/bad cop”, it’s the “good cop” who actually gets the information they end up using.

It’s not that they got the key information directly through torure, or even that what he gave them (post-torture) directions to bin Laden’s doorstep. But the information they recieved from a detainee who had been tortured provided a lead which, after a lot of years and in combination with a lot of other intelligence gathered through more conventional means, led them to the Abbottabad compound.

I would tell you of your mother, I would tell you what she did,If I only thought it wouldn’t make you completely flip your lid!

..“Old manwhy won’t you sign the papers?”…

…“Because you have broken both of my hands!”…

@rnmontgomery: Just like that Liberal John Mccain stated that torture is not effective. Who is he to say that?

If he gets a convincing answer out of that tiger, I’ll reconsider my views on torture as a policy.

Yes, you a$$hole ! More than I care to remember ! Judging by your idiotic remarks, I doubt you have.Whichever end of torture you are on, it will leave deep psychological scars that no amount of therapy will erase.There is a damn good reason that the Geneva Convention and the U.S.Military Rules of Engagement ban " enhanced interrogation".And yes, we still do it. ( Ineffectual as it is in the majority of situations. ) Does that make us any better or any worse than our foes ? No, just as savage, just as vicious, and just as stupid !There are far better ways of elicitation of information than torture. The problem is that many so-called intelligence officers watched too many Hollywood movies. Good interrogators don’t need to resort to physical abuse. Even as an expediency ! I’ve paid my dues !!!

Great ironic cartoon, & thanks for knowing how to properly use the word “whence.” Everyone else inserts “from” before it not knowing that it is unnecessary.