CNN: Secret Torture - 'I Signed Because I Was Terrified'

[Hissyspit]

Run time: 10:55 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gx3SJ4XMYo   Posted on YouTube: October 04, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: October 05, 2007 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 2943

 
October 4, 2007 - CNN's Situation Room w/ WOLF BLITZER

[Hyper_Eye]

1. Fran Townsend would be my first pick...

for a dodgeball team.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. My, My.

Leslie had Ms. Townsend dancing on the end of his string. He was quite successful in outing her as a completely reprehensible person.

[wtmusic]

3. Fran Townsend is obviously scared sh*tless

Why can't we get people in government who are strong enough to govern?

[Xipe Totec]

4. Would vigorous interrogation methods work on Townsend?

maybe she needs some encouragement.

[lumpy]

24. Townsend is not "scared sh*tless".

She is a brainwashed hardened fast talker who really believes torture is necessary; some people lose their conscience and decency for an unholy cause.

[wtmusic]

26. She admitted in an interview that she "goes to bed worried

and wakes up worried". She's a scared little control freak who wants to hurt the Muslim boogeymen before they hurt us.

[defendandprotect]

5. Townsend is WH HOMELAND SECURITY advisor . . .. WHAAAT?????

I'm a little bit concerned that perhaps Homeland Security is making itself clear --
and we should all be very concerned . . . !!!!

Looking at her and Perino - they are breaking --

and so is the MSM --

Anyone agree?

[rwheeler31]

7. It is funny ,

The right wing needs woman to bail them out.

[cynthia]

20. I find your comment sexist

nt

[wtmusic]

27. Good call nt

[noise]

6. Perino and Bush

are liars. Using them as proof 'we do not torture' is pathetic.

The harsh tactics don't begin unless the detainee is uncooperative. Talk about Orwellian...'confess or we will torture you into confessing.'

[Mojorabbit]

8. Even after all this time

and all this administration has done, I am still amazed that this topic is even being discussed like this in this country. I could never have imagined it ten years ago that someone representing my govt. would be on the news defending torture. It just boggles my mind. I just wanted to spit in her face and I am usually a serene person. Where do these people come from?

[bjobotts]

9. She is lying and totally misinformed. CIA has been torturing disidents

for civil disobedience. What information did they ever get that justifies what they are lying about? "He finally admitted he sympathized with al qaeda".
I wish Wolf would have shown the pictures from Abu Graib (sp) detainees while she was denying using torture. There has never been a reason yet for this behavior except for some fantasy in their heads. They wouldn't have neede to use torture to find out about 9/11 if they just would have done their jobs. These people are pathetic and who the hell is she to even be talking about torture. They bring nothing but shame to our once proud nation. The terrorists don't say look at what we did to the Americans...they say look at what we made the Americans do to themselves...Compromise their morals and virtues and throw away their freedoms while shrouding themselves in shame...America's not so great anymore.

[JohnyCanuck]

10. Watch the YouTube video "The Shock Doctrine"

for some excerpts from the CIA's interrogation manuals from 1963 and 1983.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc

[mrfrapp]

11. Speechless.

I remember being told in history lessons in school how the state used to torture people. I also remember being taught about why it was eventually abolished - the person being tortured will simply say whatever it is you want to hear. Even as a schoolboy this inescapable conclusion was so obvious that I am now genuinely baffled how grown men and women can't or won't understand this.

[lostnfound]

12. Perhaps the real goal isn't obtaining accurate information

More likely it is intended solely to terrify, intimidate, and dehumanize.

But the alternative concept, that the decision-makers are such simpletons as to avoid the 'inescapable conclusion' that you mention, is also frighteningly plausible.

[ProfessorPlum]

13. Ding ding ding

Give yourself a cigar. Thanks for pointing this out. The fools on CNN don't seem to get it. "Gee, why would the government torture people if it doesn't provide reliable information?" Idiots.

[mrfrapp]

28. To what end?

"More likely it is intended solely to terrify, intimidate, and dehumanize."

That's possible too. However, what would be the purpose of it all if they didn't believe it would coerce information? If it were true it would suggest that the people who authorised the policy and justified it by invoking "national security", are psychopaths.

[ProfessorPlum]

29. Have you noticed that people kid each other on the square

about "being sent to Gitmo" if they say the wrong things? Like, "Hey, you'd better not say Rumsfeld is a war criminal, they'll send you to Gitmo. Ha ha!" People already understand the purpose of our gulag system at an unspoken level.

[constitution_matters]

14. "Vital Information" was obtained

Yes, such as a false confession that was merely a gambit to stop the pain and torture.

And they wonder why "they hate us."

[wtmusic]

15. They scurry back into their "classified information" hole

whenever the questioning gets tough. Sometime I'd like to see Wolfie go in after -- "Ms. Townsend, a direct answer please...is waterboarding torture, yes or no?"

[wurstie]

30. Here's the answer

"Look, wtmusic, I'm not going to talk about specific classified techniques right now, all I can say is that the information gained from the program prevent attacks, the US doesn't torture and we stay within the bounds of the law."

Repeat until the cows come home.

[W T F]

16. If they claim that torture produced favorable results,

Why haven't they found Bin Laudin?

[Schedrin]

17. Reprehensible

What the heck has happened to this country?! Has the government no decency, no humanity left at all? Where does the Bush Administration find these fascists who fill the offices of what used to be responsibility and trust and loyalty to the Constitution? Where's the America I used to know? What have we become?

[The Wielding Truth]

32. Where is the voice of reason?She touts torture as effective.

You and I and many others feel that this is not the Country we have given our hearts to.

How could a representative of an administration support any of these techniques? They are cruel and render coerced information. That means it is unreliable.

Disgusting to hear her try and justify this. We are no better than our enemy if we do the same things. Where is the logic in violence when it cannot be trusted?

Foolish and cruel,is that something to be proud of?

[rateyes]

18. Waterboard Townsend,

and see if she will start telling the truth!

[lumpy]

25. She has passed the point of telling the truth,

to her the truth is meaningless. If she were waterboarded she would say anything you wanted to hear.

[lazyriver]

19. Does anyone else remember what it used to feel like to

be proud to be an American? 

[LongTomH]

21. Yes, but it's been a while!

:cry: :cry:

[Sam Ervin jret]

22. Torture never works - if it's secret. The Romans placed the Crosses on the MAIN streets for all

to see.

These people NEED to be PROSECUTED. There are LAWS against assaulting other people. Assault and Battery by any other name is still against the law. These people who are performing these deeds would think twice if they were hunted down, prosecuted,convicted and put in a small confined place for a protracted period of time. Let George Bush do the dirty work himself. Or better yet, let's get Dick! I bet he'd love it. Let's tape him proving how effective and patriotic it is to "interrogate" a prisoner this way. One should never be ashamed to do in public what one would be willing to do in private for the sake of one's country. And one should NEVER ask another do to what one would not do themselves.

So, I suggest our President and his V.P. give us a demonstration of exactly what type of examination the prisoners in our custody are likely to face. Which ever of them would like to take the role of the prisoner in the demonstration I leave up to them.

[lumpy]

23. What struck me is that ,essentialey ,Ms. Townsend

admitted that those reprehensible torture techniques are used. Her fast talk simply did not hide that fact.

[PDJane]

31. She's admitted torture, yes.

It is torture, and the US does it, no matter how hard they've tried to cover it up. Moreover, the US has trained their pet dictators in the use of torture.

It's long past time to admit that all torture produces is fake evidence to back up the phony war on terror....the only open-ended war in history, and one that is increasing the US carbon imprint on the planet.

Enough is quite enough.