Countdown: Torture - Hannity Still Afraid; SERE Instructor Interviewed

[Hissyspit]

Run time: 06:02 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-UB1d027ks   Posted on YouTube: April 28, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: April 29, 2009 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 2601

 
MSNBC Countdown w/ KEITH OLBERMANN - April 28, 2009: Sean Hannity has yet to respond to Keith Olbermanns offer to donate money to charity for each second he can endure waterboarding. Olbermann talks with former Army interrogator and SERE school instructor Mike Ritz, who has actually performed this form of torture, about the effects of waterboarding.

[LynnTheDem]

1. "I can get Sean Hannity to say Countdown with Keith Olbermann is his favorite show"

Oh yeah, he could.

[Seldona]

2. What a absolute disgrace.

I seriously never contemplated whether we were really out there committing war crimes, until republics came along and showed us that yes indeed it can happen here.

I know some bad shit went down in previous wars, but those instances really did seem to be more isolated cases that happened mostly in the field. Not that I am defending that either, but it is nothing like the institutionalization that has taken place today.

The fact that doctors and psychologists were involved brings this into the Nazi realm. Certainly not in the same quantity, but seemingly with the same clinically detached evil that was the Nazi hallmark. It is shocking to know how many of our core institutions were involved with torture in one way or the other.

The defense? I had a lawyer tell me I could beat these people to death after torturing them, or ordering the same? Good luck with that, if it ever sees the inside of a court room.

[theFrankFactor]

3. Hannity... Living, Breathing Joke.

THE FRANK FACTOR SHOW #16 - Waterboarding Republicans


http://media.switchpod.com/users/jd/TheFrankFactorShow16042709.mp3

[Chichiri]

4. Is this from today or yesterday?

I thought this is from yesterday's show.

[bertman]

5. Just the other night I was having a discussion with two friends--one a moderate,

one a conservative--about the issue of torture. The conservative said "waterboarding is not torture. Nobody gets killed from it. We even do it to our own guys." I was so happy to hear Ritz say what he did about being in a more or less safe environment where our guys know the "demonstration" will not end up with them being drowned. This is what people like Hannity and Limbaugh just do not get. Or choose to ignore.

Recommend this thread.

[lakercub]

7. Also the point of some of the SERE training is to

give people in sensitive positions an idea what it might be like if they are tortured by the enemy. So SERE training is helping to train people to resist torture. Since they use waterboarding...waterboarding can obviously be seen to be torture by the folks who run the SERE training.

[dbmk]

9. Well, you could point out to your conservative friend

..that the SERE training where they do this to your own guys is EXACTLY to train them to withstand _torture_ - for as long as possible and possibly be able to supply mis- or non-information for as long as possible.
And the fact that nobody gets killed from it is argumental nonsense. That would be the perfect attribute to any form of torture.

Torture: The infliction of intense pain to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure.

[bertman]

11. I did point out to him that it was just "training" and that the guys in training knew their

instructors weren't going to kill them. But it was reassuring when Ritz reaffirmed what I said--since he's the expert.

Interestingly enough, the moderate guy said that he didn't think stripping someone naked and holding a German Shepherd in front of him was torture. I asked him how he'd feel if he were naked and had his enemies holding an 80lb snarling dog four feet from his genitals, not knowing if they'd put the dog on him or not. His response was that he had been confronted by snarling German Shepherds before. Denial.

It was a strange discussion. The moderate guy and the conservative guy both said that nobody had been killed from waterboarding. I couldn't believe it.

And besides, they said, the guys who were being interrogated are some of the most evil humans on the planet. When I pointed out to them that many of the alleged terrorists were innocent people who had been turned in for reward money AND that over 100 had died during internment, they didn't have much to say.

The cool aid is being widely distributed via the corporate media.

[quidam56]

6. Hannity's patriotic, holier than thou America isn't My America !

http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=138

[bjobotts]

8. It's just like hazing when he was in college fraternity.Water balloon fights were tougher eh Hannity

[jtrockville]

10. Forget waterboarding. CRUSH. HANNITY'S. TESTICLES.