But if your stance is the latter, then I wholeheartedly disagree. Sympathizing with another's hate only goes so far, and stops when that hate has been proven to be vicious and unreasonable.

Ramzi Yousef:

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed:

Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman:

One men's pathology and dysfunction is another's revolution. If you were British in 1776, the American Founding Fathers were insurgents.

Torture remains a frequent method of repression in totalitarian regimes, terrorist organizations, and organized crime.....Most notably, such a dynamic of forced confessions marked the justice system of the Soviet Union during the reign of Stalin (thoroughly described in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago).

Yeah, right. The CIA has used waterboarding on three top al Qaeda terrorists and all the sudden we're just as evil as a Stalinist-era Soviet Union. Maybe you should go read The Gulag Archipelago again and research what profound, prolonged, and institutionalized torture REALLY is before spouting off such misplaced righteousness.

Y'know, MG, your delusion evidently knows no bounds. Now you're comparing American revolutionists with radical Islamic terrorists, and doing so with a straight face I presume?

History means nothing if you cannot "interpret" it with any fairness, context, and objectivity, which you have repeatedly NOT shown over pages and pages of posts.

You seem singularly incapable of making any distinctions. To you, Bush = Hitler and Stalin.

The American government is just as guilty as Communist and Fascist regimes.

American patriots fighting against the British in our war for independence is just like Islamist terrorists fighting for a world dominated by sharia law and religious intolerance.

Now I get where you're coming from. There comes a time where you have to take a stand, and the time for the fence-sitting needs to stop. Just which side are you on?

I am sick and tired of the liberal "do-gooders" and their ilk, who only want to coddle and treat terrorists (and other enemies) of this nation with kid gloves.

ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Richmond [Va.], December 24, 1862.

GENERAL ORDERS, No. 111.

I. The following proclamation of the President is published for the information and guidance of all concerned therein:

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES.
A PROCLAMATION.

Now therefore I, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America and acting by their authority, appealing to the Divine Judge in attestation that their conduct is not guided by the passion of revenge but that they reluctantly yield to the solemn duty of repressing by necessary severity crimes of which their citizens are the victims, do issue this my proclamation, and by virtue of my authority as Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States do order—

1. That all commissioned officers in the command of said Benjamin F. Butler be declared not entitled to be considered as soldiers engaged in honorable warfare but as robbers and criminals deserving death, and that they and each of them be whenever captured reserved for execution.

2. That the private soldiers and non-commissioned officers in the army of said Butler be considered as only the instruments used for the commission of the crimes perpetrated by his orders and not as free agents; that they therefore be treated when capture as prisoners of war with kindness and humanity and be sent home on the usual parole that they will in no manner aid or serve the United States in any capacity during the continuance of this war unless duly exchanged.

3. That all negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered over to the executive authorities of the respective States to which they belong to be dealt with according to the laws of said States.

4. That the like orders be executed in all cases with respect to all commissioned officers of the United States when found serving in company with armed slaves in insurrection against the authorities of the different States of this Confederacy.

In testimony whereof I have signed these presents and caused the seal of the Confederate States of America to be affixed thereto at the city of Richmond on this 23d day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two.

Aug 29/30, 1862 - 75,000 Federals under Gen. John Pope are defeated by 55,000 Confederates under Gen. Stonewall Jackson and Gen. James Longstreet at the second battle of Bull Run in northern Virginia. Once again the Union Army retreats to Washington. The president then relieves Pope.

Sept 4-9, 1862 - Lee invades the North with 50,000 Confederates and heads for Harpers Ferry, located 50 miles northwest of Washington.

Nov 7, 1862 - The president replaces McClellan with Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside as the new Commander of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln had grown impatient with McClellan's slowness to follow up on the success at Antietam, even telling him, "If you don't want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for a while."

Dec 13, 1862 - Army of the Potomac under Gen. Burnside suffers a costly defeat at Fredericksburg in Virginia with a loss of 12,653 men after 14 frontal assaults on well entrenched Rebels on Marye's Heights. "We might as well have tried to take hell," a Union soldier remarks. Confederate losses are 5,309.

"It is well that war is so terrible - we should grow too fond of it," states Lee during the fighting.

May 1-4, 1863 - The Union Army under Gen. Hooker is decisively defeated by Lee's much smaller forces at the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia as a result of Lee's brilliant and daring tactics. Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson is mortally wounded by his own soldiers. Hooker retreats. Union losses are 17,000 killed, wounded and missing out of 130,000. The Confederates, 13, 000 out of 60,000.

"I just lost confidence in Joe Hooker," said Hooker later about his own lack of nerve during the battle.

June 3, 1863 - Gen. Lee with 75,000 Confederates launches his second invasion of the North, heading into Pennsylvania in a campaign that will soon lead to Gettysburg.

July 1-3, 1863 - The tide of war turns against the South as the Confederates are defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.

During the 15 months during which Andersonville was operated, almost 13,000 Union prisoners died there of malnutrition, exposure, and disease

http://www.nps.gov/history/seac/histback.htm

Battle of Fort Anderson - March , 1864

Southern reports claimed that the soldiers all died fighting, but the Union witnesses reported that most of the Blacks were massacred after surrendering. Blacks were buried alive, set afire, and even mutilated. Black women and children living inside the base were also massacred.

Colonel:
Having a force amply sufficient to carry your works and reduce the place, and in order to avoid the unnecessary effusion of blood, I demand the surrender of the fort and troops, with all public property. If you surrender, you shall be treated as a prisoner of war; but if I have to storm your works, you may expect no quarter.

N.B. Forrest,
Major-General, Commanding Confederate Troops.

In 1863 the Confederate Congress threatened to punish severely officers of black troops and to enslave black soldiers. As a result, President Lincoln issued General Order 233, threatening reprisal on Confederate prisoners of war (POWs) for any mistreatment of black troops. Although the threat generally restrained the Confederates, black captives were typically treated more harshly than white captives. In perhaps the most heinous known example of abuse, Confederate soldiers shot to death black Union soldiers captured at the Fort Pillow, TN, engagement of 1864. Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest witnessed the massacre and did nothing to stop it.

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/blacks-civil-war/

Executive Mansion, Washington D.C.

Order of Retaliation

July 30. 1863

It is the duty of every government to give protection to its citizens, of whatever class, color, or condition, and especially to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service. The law of nations and the usages and customs of war as carried on by civilized powers, permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. To sell or enslave any captured person, on account of his color, and for no offence against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age.

The government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers, and if the enemy shall sell or enslave anyone because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy's prisoners in our possession.

It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war

http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/retal.htm

The "Lieber Instructions" strongly influenced the further codification of the laws of war and the adoption of similar regulations by other states. They formed the origin of the project of an international convention on the laws of war presented to the Brussels Conference in 1874 and stimulated the adoption of the Hague Conventions on land warfare of 1899 and 1907.

56. A prisoner of war is subject to no punishment for being a public enemy, nor is any revenge wreaked upon him by the intentional infliction of any suffering, or disgrace, by cruel imprisonment, want of food, by mutilation, death, or any other barbarity.

75. Prisoners of war are subject to confinement or imprisonment such as may be deemed necessary on account of safety, but they are to be subjected to no other intentional suffering or indignity. The confinement and mode of treating a prisoner may be varied during his captivity according to the demands of safety.

76. Prisoners of war shall be fed upon plain and wholesome food, whenever practicable, and treated with humanity.

They may be required to work for the benefit of the captor's government, according to their rank and condition.

79. Every captured wounded enemy shall be medically treated, according to the ability of the medical staff.

80. Honorable men, when captured, will abstain from giving to the enemy information concerning their own army, and the modern law of war permits no longer the use of any violence against prisoners in order to extort the desired information, or to punish them for having given false information.

http://www.civilwarhome.com/liebercode.htm

I suppose I'm right with regards to our gov't. not treating terrorists in accordance to the Geneva Convention, because, after all..........our Special OPS guys use hollow-point bullets against Al-Queda and Taliban "fighters" and "terrorists" all the time, which, according to the Geneva Convention, is forbidden........SO, if we can use hollow-point bullets (which is A-O.K. with me, BTW) then I say waterboarding and anything else for that matter, is fine too and should be made available for use by our troops and by the CIA with no restrictions.

Never said it did, it's my opinion

It is not a legal fact but in my opinion it is factual according
to my morals and honesty.

This shows that Mr Kiriakou was there, how else could he have had a conversation with this known terrorist? I'm sure he didn't order
the torture technique to be peformed via cell phone while in a strip
club....

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.

"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.

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.

U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that Kiriakou was a CIA employee involved in the capture and questioning of Abu Zubaida. Kiriakou, a 14-year veteran of the CIA who worked in both the analysis and operations divisions,

After the hospital interviews bore no fruit, Abu Zubaida was flown to a secret CIA prison, where the interrogation duties fell to a team trained in aggressive tactics, including waterboarding. Shortly before the transfer, Kiriakou said he left Pakistan for Washington, where he said he continued to monitor the interrogation through classified cables and private communications with colleagues.

Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety — against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. With each new tale, “thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each … target.” And so, Suskind writes, “the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered.”

If you want to fight terror, you have to be prepared to inconvenience the people who bomb, kidnap, decapitate and murder civilians and soldiers. Those who want to treat terrorists with kid gloves are the ones who complain the loudest when the intelligence community is caught flat footed by terrorist attacks. You can't have it both ways.

There are three sure things in life; Death, Taxes and this damn waterboarding thread!!!!!

Genocide on Christmas day how ironic!"

Hey, I made cookies for the occasion!!!!

Quoting the Geneva Convention, the Constitution and presidential Proclamations from many years ago is nice but it has little relevance to the issues that are being discussed in this thread

It's been what 6 years since 9/11, kind of tells me that fighting them over there has protected us over here

sacrifice too keep you safe and free

Greatest Nation on God's green earth