Okay, anyone disappointed in Obama so far?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:OK - you would blow to bits a helpless terrorist with no idea you were coming before you would capture and apply enhanced interrogation .

If those are the two alternatives, which is probably never the case. My preference would be to capture the terrorist and interrogate him with effective means rather than ineffectual and brutal methods that make a mockery of American ideals.

BTW, if you had the choice to undergo interrogation procedures that you knew were being conducted as a training exercise and which you could interrupt at any time, or undergo the same procedures administered by hated enemies who -- as far as you were aware -- might not stop until you died, which would you choose? I think we know your choice and that shows why your argument above is not that persuasive.

[Anonymous]

but you admit it is somewhat persuasive. Actually, we are defaulting more to the former as there is nowhere to hold the terrorists now, nor enhanced interrogate them without fear of prosecution. What are the alternatives to Guantanamo? Folks stacking up in sub-standard conditions in Afghanistan not allowable to enhanced interrogate. If you were making the call, wouldn't you say just bomb them from the sky? Maybe you would say bring them (where?) to do (what?). That's not the call being made. The default, which Obama seems to love, is drone bombings hither and thither.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:...
And stop calling it "enhanced interrogation". That's just a marketing term created by the last administration for torture, in order to make it sound acceptable.

"Enhanced interrogation" is our attempt to avoid "enhanced protest" -- i.e. suicide bombing.

I don't think the suicide bombers call it "enhanced". They're pretty forthright about what they are doing. Even so, it's a clever turn of phrase you made, but that does not make it true.

I meant it to be cute, and did not think in terms of "true". But now that you mention it, the bombings are clearly meant as protest, and it surely is enhanced, so I think the phrase is indeed "true", exactly as torture is "enhanced interrogation".

So are they morally equivalent actions? You appear to be positioning them as such.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I meant it to be cute, and did not think in terms of "true". But now that you mention it, the bombings are clearly meant as protest, and it surely is enhanced, so I think the phrase is indeed "true", exactly as torture is "enhanced interrogation".

So are they morally equivalent actions? You appear to be positioning them as such.

I was just commenting on the euphemism "enhanced interrogation", not the act of enhanced interrogation.