Try one of these specials with your supper: Right Wing Nut House is awaiting another speech. Ogre defends the 2nd Amendment. Texican Tattler finds Dilbert prophetic. The Therapist has a guest column by Rosie. Yes, that Rosie. Nzyme (Tursiops Times)

Regarding “The Torture Speech,” I am in favor of ending the torture speech by the liberals. Their desperate attempts to score political points with certain elements of their base (MoveOn.org comes to mind) is apparent. And it is getting old!

I think the president should announce that he will be returning all of the “detainees” to their country of capture, put them all in airplanes, and set them free at 20,000 feet once the planes are over the detainee’s “homeland.” Problem solved! Obviously not going to happen, but it gives you some idea of how sick I am of an issue where terrorist scumbags are treated with “kid gloves,” and America (and the U.S. military) is given a black eye for its trouble.

I think “The Torture Speech” is not the way to go for a couple of reasons.

I doubt it will diffuse anything. Many on the Left and in the MSM (pardon the redundancy) still claim “Bush Lied” about WMDs. They still think Dan Rather’s forged documents are the real deal. They believe 280 Swiftboat veterans all lied. They believe Kerry spent Christmas in Cambodia. Etc, Etc. It’s almost gotten to the point that if President Bush said the sky was blue, the Left (here in this country and abroad) would say yeah, it is but it’s a Karl Rove trick. I just don’t see how you can reason with those people.

I agree with Minh-Duc that torture is not something you can easily define. Minh-Duc points to current and proposed interrogation techniques on his blog. I betcha 90% of the Deaniacs would say those techniques in Category I, II & III are torture — hell, they’d definitely think the Army Ranger School is torture.

I’m not sure we want to define torture, but if we do, do we really want the President defining what torture is and isn’t?

Let’s say we define torture. Does that mean torture should never be used? Are we prepared to commit to that? I’m not. If someone is holding my kid hostage and I’ve caught the kidnapper and I find out he’s buried my kid alive, but won’t tell me where, you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna do some things to that SOB that he never dreamed of and he’s gonna tell me where my kid is or he’s gonna die ugly, very slowly. I wouldn’t hesitate. Yeah, that’s all personal and emotional. Damn straight.

Now, consider our Delta guys or the FBI or whoever have caught one of Osama’s boys and they find out that a dirty bomb is in one of our cities, set to detonate, but Osamaboy won’t tell us which city or when. We know that it’s going to kill thousands of people immediately and several hundred thousand more as a result of radiation poisoning. What can we do? If Category I, II & III interrogation techniques don’t work, what then?

My point here is that I don’t think that that should be open for public discussion. I’m not even comfortable with ANY interrogation techniques being unclassified. I don’t want the assholes to know what might happen to them. If we start getting into a big open debate about interrogation techniques and torture, I think we do more harm than good.

I think we’ve been way too forthcoming on such matters as it is.

What happened at Abu Ghraib was lack of supervision at a time when supervision was most needed — i.e. a bunch of untrained/poorly trained soldiers trying to do the jobs of professionals. The first sign that it was a Mickey Mouse operation was that photographs got out. What professional interrogator in his right mind would ever allow personal cameras in an interrogation facility? None.

Does the military intelligence community need oversight on these issues? Yes. And that oversight should be taking place in closed hearings before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

I’m sorry for the length of this. I can see where you’re coming from, but I hope you can also see where I’m coming from.

I take your point that the invasion of Iraq was a direct consequence of 9/11. Certainly, that is true. But why? Not because Iraq had any involvment in the attacks on our country. Rather, because the president and his staff decided to use the opportunity presented by the events of 9/11 to push their already established agenda - get Sadaam. Now, getting Sadaam was an objective of some merit. However, I find we have paid to high a cost. Back to the point - Bush does not mention Iraq and 9/11 in the same speach to broadcast his opportunism. He does so to suggest there was some DIRECT causal relationship. There was not. You know that. Yet, you suggest that a thinking conservative should endorse Bush’s disingenuousness. I cannot. To my way of thinking, a thinking conservative in favor of the war should be glad we did it but frustrated and disappointed by the poor way this administration went about the action.

I am also concerned about the issue of torture. I think it is detracting us from the war and it is being used by our enemies (domestic and foreign) as propaganda.

But I think we should debate from a logical and scientific approach - not an emotional one that associate with the Left. I started a very long and detail post on the subject. I am a former interrogator in Iraq and I am very interested on future interrogation policy because of the various scandals.

http://state-of-flux.blogspot.com/2005/06/serious-discussion-on-interrogation.html

President’s may be dumb but there has never been a dumb politician as President. Why would Bush hand his opponent a potential election winning issue like that? (A few tens of thousands of votes in Ohio and he would have lost).

As for the 9/11 - Iraq connection I should have been clearer in connecting the dots between 9/11 and the potential for catostrphic harm Saddam could have done us not any known involvement of Saddam’s in 9/11. The war in Iraq is a direct result of 9/11 - even the Downing Street minutes say that. In that respect, Iraq and 9/11 are connected.