I don't know I would call Ann Coulter a leader. But she is certianly one of the driving intellectual forces in the party. Hannity participated in the organization of the Tea Parties. He daily rallies the troops with his radio and TV news shows. limbaugh has a stream of elected Republicans appologizing for saying things that irritate him...but which happen to be true. hannity, limbaugh, levine and their ilk are definately leaders of the Republican Party.
Now how about Agressive interrorigatin techniques? I don't believe that you have read the report, or have any real knowledge of it's contents. Now how about Camp 020? and Lt. Col. Robert Stephens? ever heard of him? He used agressive interrorigation quite sucessfully.
Good call Good call, Mr. Roam: However, almost certainly the most important interrogation tool at Camp 020 was derived from the information provided by broken German codes. After the successful breaking of German codes by British and Allied code-breakers at Bletchley Park in late 1940, interrogators at Camp 020 were able to use decrypted German intercepts, codenamed 'Ultra', to convince German prisoners at the camp that British intelligence knew everything about their missions, and that their game was effectively up. Declassified MI5 records reveal that captured German agents were often offered a stark choice: they could either work for the British or be hanged. Ultra was also used by interrogators at Camp 020 to convince German prisoners that one of their colleagues had betrayed them. A well established interrogators' dictum states that it is one matter to suffer for a secret, but quite another to cling to a secret that is already out. (Walton) In other words, using information gathered through other methods, detainees were offered a choice: Affirm what was known, or be killed. Why die hiding what's already known? But that doesn't seem particularly applicable here. More importantly, Stephens' success depended on information accrued through other means. MI5 records reveal that 'Tin Eye' Stephens - so called because of his thick monocle - used every kind of what he termed 'mental pressure' to 'break' prisoners at the camp. Such methods included tricking prisoners with fake newspapers, typically stating that the U-Boat or airplane they had arrived on had been destroyed; stool pigeons or agents planted in prisoners' cells to get them talking; bugging equipment (usually located in hollowed-out bed posts); terrifying prisoners; sleep deprivation; and disorientation. The successes of MI5's interrogations at Camp 020 are clear. Camp 020 played a significant role in the 'Double Cross System', the now legendary system by which MI5 and Britain's other intelligence services captured all wartime German agents operating in Britain, and turned a number of them into double-agents. Through the careful interrogation of captured German agents, interrogators at Camp 020 also built up a unique card-catalogue index on the German intelligence services, which provided valuable operational intelligence to Allied forces. At the end of the war, MI5 interrogators at Camp 020 also worked closely with Allied prosecutors and were responsible for effectively interrogating and gaining intelligence from some of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, some of whom were then delivered to Allied prosecutors at Nuremberg. Let us be clear, however, that none of this is meant to imply that Camp 020 was somehow a nice place to visit: it was clearly Stephens' tactic to isolate, disorientate, humiliate, and terrify prisoners at Camp 020 in the most effective ways he could. As far as 'Tin Eye' Stephens was concerned, however, the bottom line was that physical coercion simply did not work. This conclusion was shared by other successful wartime interrogators. The most successful US interrogator in the Pacific in the Second World War, Major Sherwood F. Moran, also discovered that far more useful operational intelligence was acquired by abstaining from violence during the interrogation of Japanese prisoners - many of whom were extraordinarily ideologically committed - than by using violence. (ibid) What's that? Stephens believed that "physical coercion simply did not work"? And the United States' most successful interrogator in the Pacific during WWII agreed? It could legitimately be argued that there is a fundamental difference in the kinds of agents who arrived in Britain in the Second World War, who were successfully broken by British interrogators, and the types of ideologically committed terrorists faced by security and intelligence services today. German agents in the Second World War were usually poorly trained and were not usually ideologically committed Nazis. Perhaps, then, the successes enjoyed by MI5 through refraining from violence during interrogations in the Second World War only occurred because German agents were not ideologically committed. However, this is where lessons from other conflicts can be useful. Evidence suggests that MI5 replicated with success the rules it had developed at Camp 020 in the Second World War in post-war counter-insurgency campaigns in British imperial theatres like Malaya, which were waged against ideologically committed communists. Moreover, MI5's most successful interrogator in the early Cold War, William 'Jim' Skardon, who successfully obtained confessions from several Soviet espionage agents, including some of the notorious Soviet 'atom spies', similarly applied strict rules of non-physical coercion during interrogations. (ibid) And Britain's most successful interrogator in the opening years of the Cold War "applied strict rules of non-physical coercion"? Even the French military campaigns in Algeria, which some commentators have used to argue that torture can work, should, in fact, be regarded as a warning against the use of torture. In its counter-insurgency campaigns in Algeria in the 1950s, the French army gained the distinction of being the first army of any modern democratic state explicitly to allow torture. The French army was certainly able to gain some useful intelligence from torture in the short term. However, the history of the French campaigns in Algeria show that, in the long term, the use of torture was counter-productive. Torture was originally permitted in Algeria in 'extreme circumstances', but the history of the French counter-insurgency campaigns show that its use gradually increased, so that 'extreme circumstances' in fact became the norm. The use of torture also had a counter-productive effect on the French 'hearts and minds' campaign in Algeria and alienated important sections of the Muslim population, which were needed to provide intelligence. Decades later, the man in charge of the French campaigns in Algeria, General Jacques Massu, admitted that in reality torture had only produced negligible military benefits. (ibid) And the French, who have been described as offering an example of the efficacy of torture, found such methods alienated the population and interfered with normal intelligence-gathering methods? And the guy in charge eventually admitted that torture didn't work? Imagine that. _____________________ Notes: Walton, Calder. "Torture and intelligence gathering in Western democracies". History & Policy. October, 2008. HistoryAndPolicy.org. Accessed May 9, 2009. http://www.historyandpolicy.org/papers/policy-paper-78.html
An undefined media catchphrase. Not much to talk about, unless somebody offers a definition. I've read the conclusions, and have sufficient faith in its producers to accept them at face value. You're the one who's making the extraordinary claim that our best experts on this stuff are not just wrong, but amateurish hacks, without having read their work. Sure. Christopher Hitchens wrote an excellent article on Camp 020 recently: http://www.slate.com/id/2217583/ The characteristic thing about Camp 020 - and a big reason for its success - was that all forms of torture and abuse were strictly off-limits there, lest they corrupt the intelligence gathered. So if that's what you consider "aggressive interrogation," then it follows that W wasn't in that business.
Really? cheap dissmissal. So you have not read the report, and have no practical experence in the subject, your faith and best experts are some one elses amateurish hacks. So I can't do what you do? and read the conclusions; and have sufficient faith in its producers to accept them at face value? Seems you have a large double standard on this, Hmmmmmmmm Now if you did some research, you would find that sleep depravation was used, cold and heat were used, stress positions were used, and Intelligence was used to target specific individuals, with known information from other interrogations. Now even John McCain admitted that He was broken by torture, and reveled everything about his unit, and mission, and even signed phony confessions that were used for propaganda. Not that I am judging Him, having been in the Military, I doubt that I could have done any better, and maybe a whole lot worse, Senator McCain was and is a Hero, and I give Him all the respect that comes along with what He endured and survived, and that He never broke faith with His fellow Soldiers. The difference is that we are not looking for confessions, and before any interrogation, you already have some idea of what you are looking for from other sources, who gave information that points to some thing or some one. You don't just grab a prisoner and squeeze him, until he is a babbling pile of meat. You prepare, with information, to extract further information, from other prisoners, listening devices, signal intelligence, hard and soft intelligence, intercepts of enemy chatter, if you don't have any idea of what you are looking for you will get no results, and nothing usable, unless you are looking only for a confession for propaganda, and that is not what we are looking for, confessions for propaganda.
I would not doubt it. This is just for fun: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/17/will-ferrell-snl-season-f_n_204335.html hannity doesn't even have the balls to debate someone where he cannot turn off the microphone when he gets his tail in a jam. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cliff-schecter/sean-hannity-coward_b_46500.html more proof http://all-too-common-dissent.blogspot.com/2008/09/sean-hannity-blowhard-coward.html more proof http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otZnamM65D0 http://bgates43.newsvine.com/_news/2009/05/01/2759003-is-sean-hannity-a-physical-coward http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/robertboseley/gGxnm7/commentary
more proof http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK5sV5COcDk&feature=related Where is hannity? Why is he not living up to his commitment?
Finally a conservative radio talk show host who puts his body where his mouth is and guess what, he changes his tune and only endures the torture for 6 seconds. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/22/mancow-waterboarded-video_n_206906.html Now where is hannity?
Well that is what it's meant to do. And that is exactly what it is suppose to do, 6 seconds is torture? One other thing, his lungs were level then his head, they could have drowned him the way they were doing it. One other problem with your assessment, what information were they looking for? what was the purpose? and He wasn't a high value source of information. Before you go in looking for information, you have to have some idea of what you are looking for, otherwise all you get is what ever they think you want to here, and the exercise is use less as a tool for getting actionable intelligence. Again, lets see the redacted parts of the Memos that Obama has released, Obama is hiding something, and lets see what that something is, actionable intelligence, hmmmmmmmmmmm?
Obama is hiding nothing. Yes his head was not in the downward position, but I say that as an advantage to Mancow. Being in a tilted position would cause even more stress. By the way, being in the supine position did not endanger Mancow in the least. As for actionable intelligence, they cannot point to any actionable intelligence gained from this proceedure. There is no proof that this proceedure actually yielded any actionable intelligence. hannity is probably afraid that if he were to undergo this treatment he could reveal the truth about himself...scarier than any waterboarding.
Here, check this out. There is a Utube vid if you scroll down, the external link to the story is not working but the vid speaks for itself. http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread465790/pg1
Stupid Hannity! That guy really annoys me. Laura Ingraham is the only conservative talk host that's more annoying. I hate to say it's because she's a woman, but I think it might just be. Criminals? Convicted criminals? How many of them are suspected criminals?
