The guy is pretty cool and objective about it. He couldn't find much wrong with the whole procedure other than the possibility of him having a heart attack.
I've heard of a case where a Navy Seal took it until they gave up after something like 20 minutes!
#2
This confirms what I've said for years...how can it be torture if afterwords all you need is a Kleenex and comb?
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
03/09/2010 8:52 Comments ||
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#3
I've had my eyes clamped open and flushed for 15 minutes in an emergency room. After the first 15 or 20 seconds I could stand it. Probably not quite the same but close. I was on a gurney at the time in the prone position.
The business of politicians is getting re-elected, and business is bad for President Obama and his cronies in congress. Failing domestic policies and two endless wars have White House and Pentagon spin doctors working overtime, especially on Afghanistan and recent "victories" over the Taliban. But the inconvenient truth is that there is no Taliban, and the victories belong to Pakistan.
The real Taliban was a horde of fanatical Pashtun Muslims that swept out of Pakistan to overrun most of Afghanistan by 1994. The fighters had been educated in militant religious schools created in Pakistan for the vast refugee community fleeing the Afghan civil war that began after the Soviet army withdrawal in 1989. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) and Saudi Arabia realized the Sunni Muslim refugees could make a useful proxy force in the feud with Hindu India over Kashmir, and a buffer against Shia Iran. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the ISI reckoned they would prove even more useful in helping Islamabad maintain an influential position in whatever finally arose from the Afghan quagmire of warlords and tribal warfare. So the ISI and the Saudis fed, financed, and armed the Talibs--a "talib" is a religious student--and Mullah Mohammed Omar, a one-eyed veteran of fights with the Soviet army, led them into battle. Capturing the capital they forced Afghans to adopt stoning, amputations, and beheadings in accordance with Sharia law, destroyed functioning government, blew up the priceless Bamiyan statues of Buddha, and invited Osama bin Laden to stay. Things were going well for the Talibs until 9/11.
When the Bush administration determined Al Qaida was behind the terror attack on New York they demanded the Taliban turn over Osama for trial. They were refused. Then an unsung chapter in the history of warfare began. On 7 October 2001, the United States swung into action. The CIA's elite Special Activities Division (SAD) was the first to enter Afghanistan and organized the Northern Alliance for the subsequent arrival of US Army Special Forces. The combined forces of the CIA, Special Forces, and the Northern Alliance overthrew the Taliban without significant loss of American lives, and without the use of a large army or Marine forces. In December, just two months after the SAD arrival, the Taliban abandoned their last stronghold of Kandahar and dispersed. That was the end of the real Taliban.
What emerged after that victory was a gaggle of independent forces, each calling themselves Taliban, that are now fighting a guerrilla war against a huge NATO army. Mohammed Omar and his Quetta Shura try to make life difficult in the southern province of Helmand. In the east there is the Haqqani network, and in the north the Hekmatyar group. Foreign fighters arrive from time to time, Iran makes noises, but the old Taliban is no more. So why are we grinding it out on the ground with over 100,000 troops?
Massive military power is largely ineffectual in guerrilla warfare, and with the exception of US Army Special Forces and the CIA, our generals are not inclined to fight a guerrilla war. They may have studied British success in Malaysia, but what are lots of troops, armor, artillery, airborne, close air support and tons of equipment good for, unless you use it all to justify those all-important requests for more funding. General Petraeus can write another manual, and we can hope "Iraq surge" works in Afghanistan too, but the White House and the Pentagon have yet to learn that a guerrilla war is very hard to win with conventional strategy. Lessons of Vietnam have faded. Even with his huge army the NATO commander, General Stanley McChrystal, warns of "mission failure" unless even more forces are deployed. So why the sudden spate of victories? How did captures of "most wanted Taliban" happen? And what about those successful drone strikes?
The explanation of recent "victories" is simple. After Mullah Baradar and his henchmen set up shop in Karachi, the ISI decided the Quetta Shura was becoming more internal threat than external asset. Hence the ballyhooed arrest of Baradar, supposedly by CIA and ISI operatives. On top of that, Pakistani "Taliban" groups like the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were shooting up Pakistan. The TTP cares nothing about Afghanistan but wants control of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the northwest frontier. When the Pakistani army asserted itself in that mountainous region the TTP took revenge with attacks on settled areas. Finally, the ISI realized Pakistani "Taliban" and Afghan "Taliban" were joining forces. They knew the benign relationship with proxies that were to be used in Afghanistan, when the Americans leave, was ending. Hence intelligence was given to the Americans resulting in victorious captures and drone attacks.
The 2012 elections are fast approaching, so what can President Obama do about his unpopular Afghan war and General McChrystal, who declares his guerrilla warfare mantra to be "protecting the people." The White House solution may be to use Pakistani intelligence, kill a few phony Taliban, and send the troops home, telling voters their mission was accomplished. A different president would be able to remember 2001 and would reactivate the Northern Alliance. They hate Mullah Omar, Hekmatyar, and Haqqani, and they defeated them once before in just 60 days--with help from the CIA and Special Forces.
But Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, would probably go along with the Obama White House plan. He goes along with anything they say anyway.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
There isnt a Taliban or was there a threat from Saddam/Iraq.
What there is most definitely is a strong Islamic following of Jihad that motivates young male followers to carry out armed conflict against those they consider the enemy.
Unfortunately the enemy is everyone that isnt ultra orthodox Islamic, so also ironically and hypocritically includes most of the Islamic people of this world.
As long as their enemies are armed and uniformed whether with a gun or a briefcase makes no discerning difference, this is the dress of their enemy and justifies attack under the name of Islamic Jihad, this is my understanding of the Islamist message, correct me if Im wrong please.
We have all seen their actions and heard their voice to know we are directly threatened by these small but motivated groups. We are directly threatened within our own countries that have our names and our religions upon them because this ideological belief is being taught in questionable mosques here thanks to backing from certain Islamic states.
The reality is that the anger that exists in these young males bearing European or American passports is going to manifest itself in some cases.
It is best if that manifestation occurs outside of our borders and directed at fit men trained to kill i.e. our armies, than in our streets, transport systems, offices, pubs.
By placing a battle ground outside of our borders directly makes our countries safer.
Posted by: Sir Victor Emmanuel Glomomble IV ||
03/09/2010 3:16 Comments ||
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#4
A different president would be able to remember 2001 and would reactivate the Northern Alliance. They hate Mullah Omar, Hekmatyar, and Haqqani, and they defeated them once before in just 60 days
Someone gets it.
Although, you could argue the Northern Alliance has already been reactivated. It's now called the Afghan National Army.
People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid. Much of the stupidity we see today is induced by our educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities. In a high-tech age that has seen the creation of artificial intelligence by computers, we are also seeing the creation of artificial stupidity by people who call themselves educators.
Educational institutions created to pass on to the next generation the knowledge, experience and culture of the generations that went before them have instead been turned into indoctrination centers to promote whatever notions, fashions or ideologies happen to be in vogue among today's intelligentsia.
Many conservatives have protested against the specifics of the things with which students are being indoctrinated. But that is not where the most lasting harm is done. Many, if not most, of the leading conservatives of our times were on the left in their youth. These have included Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan and the whole neoconservative movement.
The experiences of life can help people outgrow whatever they were indoctrinated with. What may persist, however, is the lazy habit of hearing one side of an issue and being galvanized into action without hearing the other side and, more fundamentally, not having developed any mental skills that would enable you to systematically test one set of beliefs against another.
#1
Ironically, "Artificial Stupidity", under that name, is regarded as one of the most difficult and advanced studies within Artificial Intelligence.
AI maxed out early in its capabilities, so its top experts created AS to get around AI's limitations. AS is needed to figure out and correct mistakes, intentionally making mistakes so that they can be identified.
#2
People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid.
Statistically speaking, somebody somewhere was too born stupid. Except in the town where A Prairie Home Companion is set, where all the children are above average.
The first American to be charged with treason since World War II was back in the news Sunday, both for a new videotape he released and for reports of his capture that turned out to be false. In the videotape, al-Qaeda operative Adam Gadahn, an American convert to Islam, praised the Fort Hood jihad murderer and called upon Muslims to carry out jihad attacks in the United States. The reports that Gadahn had been captured caused widespread excitement until the arrestee turned out to be a different American convert to Islam, Abu Yahya Mujahdeen Al-Adam, who like Gadahn is an al-Qaeda leader. The videotape and the arrest of the other American-born Muslim demonstrate yet again the cognitive dissonance that prevails at the highest levels regarding the nature of the jihad threat.
In the videotape, Gadahn called Nidal Hasan, who murdered thirteen people in the name of jihad and Islam at Fort Hood in November 2009, Brother Nidal' and held him up as the ideal role-model for every repentant Muslim in the armies of the unbelievers and apostate regimes.' And not just military personnel: Gadahn added that Nidal Hasan is a pioneer, a trailblazer and a role-model who has opened a door, lit a path and shown the way forward for every Muslim who finds himself among the unbelievers.'
Posted by: ed ||
03/09/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
I'm still trying to figure out what lessons this POS has to teach. That some screwed up kid from California converts to islam and sells out his country? That there are others of his ilk out there?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
