re: #769 yasharki

Pardon my ignorance but I’ve no clue what “24 style detainee treatment” means. I am also puzzled by your “generals” reference. I grew up hearing stories from WWII veterans who got highest military honors, medals, and some became generals for capturing nazi officers who would be interrogated by counter intelligence , or plainly speaking tortured in order to extract tactical and strategic intelligence. You can argue that soviet methods (I am a Russian immigrant) were wrong, but those grandpa’s who were telling us these stories said that they didn’t have a choice, it was kill or be killed, and since the other side has abandoned all previously practiced, so called “honorable” rules of engagement they had to do what they had to do…

24 is a teevee show where detainees are savagely beaten and the ticking time bomb always stops a second before it is meant to explode. Real life doesn’t work like that - sometimes the bomb goes off anyway.

General Patraeus believes torture is counter productive in intelligence gathering -and he is fighting the current war, not the war some 70 years ago - but the one we are actually in right now.

georgewashington2.blogspot.com