Desi In Toronto

How is it that I can wish someone who looks like this die an horrendous death.

An excerpt from her article :

According to the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war are afforded certain protections. But contrary to what some folks might believe, we’re not talking about prisoners of war here. In the war on terror, we’re dealing largely with “unlawful enemy combatants” — unaccountable freelancers who dress like they’re coming out of philosophy class at UC Berkeley.

If you want full legal protections that come with engaging in legitimate warfare, then go join an army and put on a uniform so that Western forces can spot you before you head into a civilian centre with a bomb strapped to yourself and blow up innocent people

I’m not sure how folks who are critical of the CIA’s interrogation techniques would suggest eliciting intelligence from guys like this. Perhaps by offering him some tasty snacks and the love and understanding that he lacked as a child?

The CIA doesn’t do what they do for kicks. As CIA Director Michael Hayden explained the other day, interrogation techniques serve a purpose.

So now that we’ve established that the detainees in question aren’t even protected by the Geneva convention, and that they often have crucial information that can save lives, what about the idea of waterboarding as “torture”?

When asked about it during a recent CNN appearance, I suggested that “one man’s torture is another’s CIA-sponsored swim lesson.” In case anyone thought I was being facetious — I wasn’t.

I suppose that those who object to terror suspects getting water up the nose would say that, as a young competitive swimmer, I was also tortured. It was called “hypoxic training” — swimming underwater and holding our breath until we passed out. Our coaches didn’t call it torture, just an exercise in “mental toughness.” So think of it this way — terror suspects are getting some free mental toughness training courtesy of the U.S. government.

I am glad you were fired Ms . Marsden. It is imperitive that shit like you flows to were it belongs…..in the sewer. Here is her latest crap after she was fired. Waah Waah Waah.

<Link>

Two Taliban rockets struck a forward operating base west of Kandahar Tuesday during a visit by Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

MacKay was conducting private meetings at Forward Operating Base Wilson, about 20 kilometres west of Kandahar city, when the attack occurred.

“I do not believe he was targeted,” Gen. Rick Hillier told reporters on Tuesday. “I think these are things that have occurred (coincidentally) in time and space. I think it is less dangerous now during any time we’ve been there for the last 18 months, for ranking Canadians to go out there and to move around in the vicinity.”

So, I guess it means that there is still some danger (even though we and the NATO has spent millions and millions of dollars) to the politicians and generals (and, hence, the Canadian soldiers). Okay, if there is danger then there is danger. Insurgency will continue for a while and we will continue fighting it back even though insurgents probably are smart and sophisticated as this bit tells us:

Bill Graveland, a reporter for The Canadian Press who was at the forward operating base with MacKay, told CTV Newsnet the attacks were likely spurred by the increase in helicopter activity at the base.
……………..

Military analyst Sunil Ram said the Taliban tend to keep a “very sharp eye” on the day-to-day activites of the troops.

“The minute they notice a change, it generally will trigger an attack. Albeit a rocket attack is incredibly inaccurate, and as a direct targetting of the minister, I think it’s unlikely,” Ram said on CTV Newsnet’s Mike Duffy Live.

But why do our politicians and high ranking officials insist on making absolute crappy statements like this :

Hillier said the attack is a sign of how desperate the Taliban have become since being pushed back by coalition forces.

“What was subjected to attack was one of our forward operating bases and that has been consistent because the Taliban have been driven back so they have to resort to long-distance attacks,” he said.

This is just a rehash of statements of Dick Cheney and President Bush