[Nathaniel Firethorn]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=516&e=1&u=/ap/20030302/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_al_qaida_arrests


Alleged 9/11 Plotter Taken From Pakistan
26 minutes ago

By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - U.S. authorities have taken the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks out of Pakistan to an undisclosed location after capturing him in a joint raid by CIA (news - web sites) and Pakistani agents, a senior government official said Sunday. Well done, USA!

- pdmoderator

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

I see that one thread on this has been locked down already for discussing torture. Please: don't.

I want the information on Al-Qaeda gotten and justice done as much as anyone here. Beyond that we are lowering ourselves to their level.

- pdmoderator

[Thumper]

I think Preacherman was appropriately referring to personally advocating torture.

I think the discussion of torture as a moral question, however, is entirely necessary. The talking heads have certainly been batting it around to death.

[Don Gwinn]

Discussion of torture is one thing. Advocating torture in specific, graphic terms is another. I think Preacherman was very clear. If you want to discuss torture, and you're in favor of its use by the U.S., then as a simple courtesy please restrict your comments to reasons why you think torture is justified--not long-winded descriptions of all the various torments you want to inflict on someone.

As for the subject at hand, this is very welcome news. I wonder how isolated this nutbar is from Bin Laden? Makes you wonder if he might know something we could use to get OBL or prove he's dead.
Another piece of the puzzle, at any rate.

[Gary H]

Fox was reporting this morning that the U.S. may be handing him off to Kuwait. I'm not sure what this means. We are going through all of his computer files and papers. That will probably give us our first bit of information. To extract the rest by conventional means will be a long process. Look at how long we were at it in Cuba.

[SteveA]

They're a day late. This came over CNN yesterday.

I'm glad they got him. Though I doubt it, this may help locate others.

[hops]

I would not endorse physical torture, ever. But non-physical torture is another matter for me. I'd start by making him watch Jerrry Lewis movies. Then move up or down from there.

[Thumper]

I would not endorse physical torture, ever.

Ever, Hops?

Indulge me in a little Hollywood...

Say we were sure this guy had a nuke hidden somewhere in Manhattan, scheduled to go off in 8 hours?

Would you physically torture him then?

[Gewehr98]

http://customwire.ap.org/photos/NYET210030216-big.jpg

[Thumper]

Now that's a hairy individual.

Evolve a little bit, brotha.

[jsalcedo]

I didn't know Ron Jeremy was a terrorist.....:confused:

[Standing Wolf]

Torture, schmorture!

I say we leave barbarity to the enemy, find out everything this Islamic terrorist savage knows, and hang him.

[dev_null]

Funny, all this time I'd been hearing that Bin Laden was the mastermind... :rolleyes:

Does the phrase "panem et circenses" ring a bell?

-0-

[Sean Smith]

The Hedgehog was Al Qaeda's mastermind? Who knew?

:evil:

[Marshall]

Get all you can out of him, I don't really care how, then spit on his forehead!

"Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms!"


We all know who said that! ;)

[Sean Smith]

Let me provide some insight on the torture thing.

Background: I was actually an Army counter-intelligence officer. Got my diploma and everything. It looks like crap; my printer at home could make something cooler. :D

Anyway...

We don't use torture for a very simple reason that has nothing to do with morality: it sucks as a way of getting information out of people. See, it turns out that if you torture people, they just start making up what they think you want to hear to get you to stop. They rarely tell you the truth, because they are afraid the truth will piss you off more. And if they are telling the truth, they will add so much extra crap that is either lies or just babble that it will be useless anyway. Torture also has the rather significant problem of making your human intelligence specialists become psychologically damaged wife-beating drunks. And since people who are actually good at that sort of thing are (a) rare, and (b) expensive as hell to train, that isn't an insignificant consideration.

Countries that practice torture don't do it to get useful information. They do it because they are barbaric dirtbags, and are using torture as a means of creating terror and exacting revenge.

As far as drugs go... the CIA might have some goodies somewhere, but in general they aren't used for interrogations either. The problem can be stated like this: if it is a powerful enough inxoticant to overcome your inhibitions against helping the enemy, it is powerful enough to impair your reason enough to make anything you say garbage. Sadly, we had to deal with recalcitrant Bosnian beefheads the old-fashoned way.

Now, having said that, things get a little fuzzier when it comes to what is known in the vernacular as "#*@!!ing with their heads." Even within the letter of the Geneva Convention restrictions (which, of course, we follow as applicable), there is an awful lot of subtle and not-so-subtle psychological stuff you can do to make people become "cooperative." In cases where the Geneva Convention doesn't apply, you can do more interesting things, but most of the extreme mental abuse isn't really effective either... insane subjects tend to not be real useful.

The aim, and what we get most of the time, is voluntary cooperation. This may seem like a bizarre goal when dealing with your sworn enemies, but you'd be surprised how many of them will just roll over and sell out to the American Satan with the right kind of manipulation. Torture is for amateurs.

[OF]

Well said, Sean.

I would also add that there's an important difference between being willing to personally torture someone to get info on where your loved ones are being held and giving the gov't or the police the power to do the same.

- Gabe

[CZ-75]

Funny, all this time I'd been hearing that Bin Laden was the mastermind

OBL is the financier, not the mastermind, from what I've heard. Bear in mind that the media often takes half-truths and runs with them when not making outright fabrications.

As to who was generally claimed to be al-Qaeda's supreme mastermind, that would be Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri.

This hairy ape would be a tactical planner for them, so it would be fair to say that he was the mastermind of 9/11, USS Cole, WTC '93, and African Embassy bombings.

[BigG]

Reports of the extinction of Neanderthal man are premature a highly-placed educator who asked not to be named was quoted as saying... :p

[gun-fucious]

anyone else notice this?:

[BigG]

Heh heh. Son of Sam looked somethin like that yokel (and Belushi) also. Anybody remember what Uncle Joe Stalin looked like? These guys could all be from the same gene pool. Chlorine time! :D

[Zander]

Though I doubt it, this may help locate others.This is, as a factual matter, exactly 180º from the standard. It not only will help, it will be crucial, although the highest "authority" of this murderous group is only one or two steps above.

You'll have to trust me on my opinion...

[Safety First]

Now if they can just get their hands on Osama....

[Gewehr98]

One way to get the info out of our Ron Jeremy lookalike:

Washington Times
March 5, 2003
Pg. 19

Interrogating KSM

By Jack Wheeler

With the capture of top al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (known as "KSM"), getting him to disgorge the contents of his brain quickly and truthfully is critically necessary before his network has a chance to vanish undercover.

What, then, would the most efficient and effective form of interrogation be? In 1995, the Philippine State Police captured an al Qaeda agent. They knew he was planning some terrorist act, but didn't know what. So they tortured him — the old-fashioned way, right out of the movies with putting out cigarettes on his testicles, breaking his ribs, the whole brutal nine yards. It took two weeks and finally he broke, revealing a plot to hijack 11 airliners. By exposing and unraveling the plot, the torture saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives, so it was clearly justified.

The ethics of torturing KSM should not be an issue. As a practical matter, the question is: How to torture him in such a way that it takes hours, not days or weeks, for him to break; and when he does, you know for sure he is telling the truth.

To start, you don't want to use a so-called truth serum like thiopental sodium. It acts by confusing your memory so much you forget who is your friend and who is your enemy. So you think the interrogator is your friend and you talk — except you can't think or remember clearly. No, you want KSM to be thinking and remembering with crystal clarity.

The best lie detector — although it's not used as such — would be a medical brain-scanning device called a functional MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). Light years in effectiveness beyond a polygraph, an fMRI scan can distinguish — instantly, in real time — when someone is lying as opposed to telling the truth, as different regions in the brain would light up.

So here's what to do.

Fly in from the United States and set up an fMRI at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, where KSM is being held, and do three things: Place KSM under the fMRI brain scanner; put him on a mechanical respirator; and give him an injection of a paralytic drug called succinyl choline chloride (SCC).

SCC, used as a veterinarian anesthetic, causes muscle paralysis by blocking neuromuscular junction. It causes immobilization without affecting the central nervous system, such that KSM cannot move, yet he is fully conscious and there is no analgesia (pain relief). Injection by an M.D. anesthesiologist of SCC into the nerve tracts leading to the diaphragm will paralyze the muscles needed for breathing. KSM can think, remember, and talk, but he cannot breathe. The mechanical respirator breathes for him. Without the respirator, he would quickly suffocate and die.

The respirator is a CPAP, a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure unit used for treating sleep apnea, with a nasal mask. The unit itself is placed in an adjacent room with a long hose, as no metal can be around the huge magnets of the fMRI. The unit will force air via the nasal passageway into the lungs. His mouth is free and clear to talk.

Now the interrogation begins. KSM is asked a series of questions to which the answers are known (e.g., Are you a Muslim? Would you like a drink of pig grease?). If he lies, the respirator is turned off. Few experiences are more terrifying than that of suffocation. After a sufficiently terrifying period of suffocation, the respirator is turned back on, the question is asked again, and the process repeated until he tells the truth. Once you have the regions in KSM's brain clearly distinguished that light up when he is lying or telling the truth, the serious questioning starts. It will not take long, an hour or two at the most, before KSM is singing like a full chorus of canaries.

After all useful information has been extracted from his brain, KSM should be informed that he will now be killed after his body is smeared with pig fat, that his dead body will be handled by women, and all other actions taken that prevent a Muslim from entering heaven upon death so that he dies believing he will never get the heavenly wine and virgins, but will burn in Hell instead. Upon his execution, there should be no physical remains. The body should be cremated and the ashes scattered to the winds.

Then, the word can be spread. All members of al Qaeda must know that once captured, their terrorist brethren will betray their comrades and that their fate will be ashes and Hell. The only way to win the war against terrorism is to terrorize the terrorists into giving up their evil jihad.

Jack Wheeler is president of the Freedom Research Foundation and editor of ToThePointNews.com.