Let us instead rationalize the wonderful world that could be rather than the worold that is. It is after all so much easier to excuse the deaths of thousands of Americans than resort to such shameful methods to protect citizens.

I appreciate you taking the time to look through the links.

The quotes that you refer to in your later comments are from Rick . . . not me. Those links were the first few I was able to get my hands on, and wer’nt specifically designed to address his claim about “hundreds, if not thousands” of torture victims. The only link of the 4 that was intended to directly relate to the issue of torture was the waterboarding link (the first one), and I don’t think anybody is allegingthat waterboarding was used hundreds or thousands of times on prisoners.
Due to some time-sensitive pressures at my job, I’m limited in the ammoutn of time I can assign to finding torture-specific links. I will certianly see what I can find, and I’ll put links to it when I do. As I said before, I respect 100% skepticism without evidence, so your (and others’) doubt about the facts is laudable. I also understand the suspicion of “Liberal” or “Leftie” or other biased sites. Unfortunately, before digging too much farther I can virtually guarantee that most of the information detaling with these issues will be found on sources like these, if for no other reason than they are the ones focused on getting and presenting the information. The DOD site didn’t provide the information on their site by choice, nor would I expect them to. Again, I’ll try to find sources as “non-leaning” as possible, but the topic is going to limit that to some degree.
Without speaking for Mr. Moran, I think his “hundreds/thousands” assertions are based on a combination of factors. First, we did torture prisoners — at least the 3 acknowledged waterboarders, as well as multiple allegations of other torture (chaining up prisoners to the ceiling, extended,prolonged cold, beating, etc.) on many other prisoners. Second, there were/are thousands of prisoners in situations where the torture occured. Third, the Administration’s handling of the questions regarding these situations (reditions, “ghost prisons”, etc.) has been at best less than informative, which as a general principle usually suggests some level of concealment . . . which usually implies something to conceal. Do these three points “prove”, like a mathematical equation, thousands of examples of torture? Of course not. But they certainly do make that answer for more likely than “Its all a complete fabrication of the hippies”, and with each new piece of onformation that gets out the situation looks worse.
I get the impression that, based on all that has come out, and how it all came out, Mr. Moran has ultimately decided that the collective evidence makes the widespread torture scenario the believable one, and that to come to another conclusion is unsupported. Much like any court case, at a certain point Occam’s Razor needs to be applied. Sure, all the evidence didn’t “prove” OJ Simpson killed two people — it is possible to explain everything away, but with the evidence presented, the simplest explanation is that he’s a murderer.
Again, I’ll see what specific evidence I can find re: torture of prisoners.

Qwinn

I was specifically looking for evidence to back up your claim that “Yes, torture has been used on many hundreds and probably thousands of detainees in our custody.”. I found none. There certainly wasn’t any evidence, or even a claim, of that in the first three links you provided, which leaves only the ACLU link. I’ll get to that link in a moment.

I also found no evidence, or even the claim, in the first three links that “The techniques went far beyond water boarding and “stress” techniques and included beatings, electric shock, and other barbaric practices.” So, again, we are left only with the ACLU link.

So it appears that your most sensational claims are backed up only by your ACLU link, and my God, what a mountain of BS is contained therein. I was particularly amused by the very first links I saw - “New Evidence that Government Knew Abuse was Widespread Before Abu Ghraib Photos”. ZOMG NO RLY?!?! Um, I actually remember, seeing with my own eyes, a press release from the DoD and Rumsfeld himself, about 4 months before the Abu Ghraib thing got covered on the front page of the NY Times 31 days in a row, wherein they voluntarily released to the press the information that abuses at Abu Ghraib had occurred and were under investigation. No one paid attention at the time. It didn’t make the news. That doesn’t change the fact that they voluntarily gave the press that information 4 months before the media turned it into a circus, and it at least went out far enough that a simple blog-reading guy like me noted it. The breathless cries about how THE GOVERNMENT KNEW, as if the media themselves “broke” the story amid a massive government conspiracy to never let anyone know about it, is precisely the sort of bullshit you need to learn to watch out for. Is the information that “the government knew!” accurate? Sure. And you read it and say “Wow, this is a great source”, and you believe it, but what you don’t think about is the assumptions that are required in order to make that -matter-, that assumption being that the government wasn’t forthcoming about it. They were. They voluntarily released it in a press statement, long before the press “broke” the story. This makes the dozens of links at that site talking about coverups at Abu Ghraib completely nonsensical.

The problems with the rest of the links are in a similar vein. Not all are accurate though, many relying on flimsy information - what you don’t realize is that government agencies have to note stuff down if someone even makes an allegation. The fact that someone from the government made note of an allegation (often made by the prisoners themselves, and we have the Al Qaeda training manual that specifically instructs their members to allege torture whether it occurs or not) doesn’t give it any sort of credibility. At all.

The link also repeatedly describes things like “sensory deprivation” and “dogs” (not actually letting dogs attack prisoners, just scaring them with dogs) as “torture”. I’m sorry, but if that’s considered torture, then you’re devaluing the term into meaninglessness. I remember lefties going absolutely hysterical over a memo written by Rumsfeld that supposedly “authorized torture”, but the single statement quoted by any media from that memo was, paraphrased, “I stand for eight hours a day every day, why do we have rules saying these guys can’t be made to stand for four?” That was the most sensational quote “authorizing torture” that they could come up with in this supposedly devastating memo? It’s absurd, and you really gotta stop looking at headlines and thinking, zomg, US is teh ebil. You’re being conned. They’re -trying- to con you. It’s deliberate. It’s propaganda. And you’re falling for it, hook, line, and sinker.

Qwinn

“Sorry, Rick, but your sourcing is awful. You claim incredible things and link only to a single blog and a single NY Times book reviewer you admit is a liberal.”

I’ve posted these links (and others) in these threads before . . . the usual response is to ignore them, but if you’d like sources that you might find less objectionable philosophically, would you at least consider:

Malcolm Nance, a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy SERE facility in CA. The SERE training officer who was in charge of using waterboarding on our specialist trainees? Most of the “support” for waterboarding I hear from people echoes some version of “we do it to our troops, so it can’t be too bad.” This conservative military officer, who has waterboarded more people (all Americans) than probably any other American is imho a credible source as to what it is:

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/10/waterboarding-is-torture-perio/

As to the argument that “everybody in Gitmo is a battlefield-captured, shooting at Americans, hardended terrorist”, Here are the freedom of information releases of the transcripts for “classification” hearings held there. Military transcripts. Hundreds of pages. If you click on the link, you’ll see the site is hosted by the Department of Defense. Hardly liberal. certainly not second-hand. Case after case of the “battlefield conditions” the majority of these prisoners were captured under (such as the very first one . . . cooking dinner if I remember correctly).

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt/index.html

Article from the Natinal Journal. Even if you consider the organization Left or Liberal (I don’t that that’s a reasonable view, but to each their own), the reporting is pretty detailed, cite-specific, and relies on military, FBI and government employees.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0203nj4.htm

I’m sure you’ll decry this next link — as you can see from the link, it leads to the ACLU site. However, the page linked is a collection of FOIA documents. Skip all the “leftie propaganda” if you like — the collection of .pdf files is straight military and government; autopsy reports of prisoners beaten to death, acknowledgement of renditions and abuse, details (lots of details) of what has happened. If you discredit the site, again I disagree but understand. But do consider the documents prepared by the military politically biased against themselves?

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/logs.html

There are, sadly, more. Lots more. This information isn’t hard to get your hands on if you look.
You refer to the allegations as “incredible”. I agree. You want to see more impartial, more substantial proof than “it was in a book” or “the reviewer said the liberal said”. I can respect that.
Here is proof. First hand evidence. One click away. Military specialists, official military records, transcripts. Thousands of pages. No “someone said that these incredible allegations are supported” — view them with your own eyes and make up your own mind.

That’s about as sad a view of the way things should be as I have ever seen. Everyone just shut the F up and it will all go away. You ever wonder why liberals think conservatives believe they can tap their feet together and reality will not exist? This is like the O’Reily, “once we go to war everyone should shut up!” foolishness. Doesn’t matter that every one of our founding fathers would say to NOT speak up is the opposite of patriotism.

Conservatives really don’t know what patriotism is though, do they? They think it is lapel pins and rooting for more war.

I suggest you all watch the show, if you can get your conservative handlers to give you permission.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07252008/profile.html

Today’s right is conditioned by decades of Rush misinformation, and if he calls it club gitmo, his cult following will think as they are conditioned to do.

Even the hypocrite McCain wouldn’t try to stop Bush from making us a torture state.

You know Rush has been conditioning his followers for three hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year for 20 years. That is longer than Koresh conditioned his cult.

Conservtaives are simply intellectually dishonest. Don’t believe me? List the top five things Bush has done from lying us into a his plan-free war to spying without a warrant. List them and then tell me had Clinton done the exact same thing you would not be screaming for his head.

A helicopter plucked two frostbitten Dutch climbers from the world?s second-highest mountain Monday …