As Nancy P would say here: “I (Inwood) stand by your statement in #225!”

Thanks very much for the explanation and laughs. Lately the only way to get down the events of the day is with dose of parody (theonion.com).

After reading of the tactics of Saul Alinsky, and then taking a look at today’s American liberalism, I wonder how can there be any self-respect in the mix in using any means available. What a waste of time it is as well to have a discussion based on the issues – there is never going to be any resolution since the goal of the interactions for the left is not to get to the bottom of things but to prevail.

I can understand that for those actually in politics that demagoguery works as it did in Chicago for Alinsky and BHO, as in organized crime killing people is something that just has to be done, but for those there’s a tangible reward.

How does one become ‘a troll,’ a virtual character from Glenngary Glen Ross, speaking entirely for effect, where if truth happens it’s merely a coincidence? What’s in it for them?

Maybe it is about feeling good about oneself in some cases, and the group they’re with applauds deceptive efforts, considers them clever and creative.

Well in any event, after a great article and 200+ comments, any logical thinking person would have to conclude that EIT works, produced tangible results such as saving LA, produced those results using the only methods possible, as Dick Cheney said yesterday, ‘gave us information on OUR timeline rather than their time (so much for 18 month ‘befriending’ methods), did not put our troops at risk by causing a rush for terrorist enlistments, and worrying about world opinion is a manipulation since the only way we can improve that is by blowing all of ourselves up (same as for Israel).

I see that Wal-Mart offers “one-stop shopping”. That is, in one place, you can get your eyes examined for glasses, your car serviced, tonite’s dinner, your drugs, tools for your house, etc.

What some don’t understand is that at Gitmo, the prisoners could get one stop hardball or softball without having to be moved from place to place!

Your troll was fooled about Britain. It wasn’t one-stop shopping. He saw only the softball place (Latchmere), not realizing (or, not wanting to realize) that there was a hardball place (The London Cage).

Let me be clearer: The trolls are not going off the reservation or sidebarring; they are working from the approved text.

You obviously don’t understand the logic here.

Let me explain it in simple terms: The NYY have just won eight games in a row. This will, in your phrase, be the #1 motivational force for recruitment of Red Sox fans. You will see.

You’ve got to understand the ACLU/BDS way of thinking. Our wealth, instead of being a beacon to the downtrodden in Muslim countries makes them paranoid & depressed & open to reasonable suggestions like “Death To The Great Satan”.

The fact that the Israelis took the worst part of that damn area in the Middle East & made it bloom while the Palestinians can’t do anything but blow themselves & others up, means that the Israelis are the devil & must be destroyed & is a good recruitment tool for Palestinian leaders who don’t want to blow themselves up.

The same with crime in the US. The fact that the CEOs of American corporations get big bucks causes the yoots in da inner city to rape & mug mostly their defenseless neighbors in the inner city who are would-be strivers. Ya gotta understand the root causes.

And when it suits the purposes of the moral preeners, the British conduct against the Irish terrorists (root causes for the IRA? Nevermind!) in Mountjoy (ironic name, no?) prison in the early 1900s & in the “maze”, OOPS Her Majesty’s Prison Maze, in the late 1900s is ignored (a recruitment tool for the IRA? Nevermind! Let’s move on; nothing to see there;) & the softball treatment of 400 WW II POWs is highlighted as if The London Cage never existed.

Got it? If not, go to Moveon.org or the Daily Kos. They’ll explain it all for you.

Re: “And as I, a lawyer, can tell you, some interrogation techniques that would produce a mistrial in a criminal case or result in evidence being excluded as improperly “gathered”, may & must be used for military intelligence gathering. … Someone once said that the ACLU thinks that all military trials are kangaroo proceedings…”

The next thing the ACLU, et al, will probably demand is that any information gathered by “EIT” cannot be used to aid in defending against terrorist attacks. Heather MacDonald once said about the ACLU that it comes “very close to saying there is no such thing as a legitimate police investigation.”

I would also hazard to say that there has been a de facto change in The Law of War for our side, i.e., liberals have raised the bar for the US … again.

It’s more involved than people getting pissed off about water boarding. I’m wary of that particular source who claims that was the #1 motivational factor for recruitment.

From Chapter 5, Al-Qaida: Terrorist Selection and Recruitment, by Scott Gerwehr and Sara Daly – both of the RAND Corporation

The following is a summary, the whole chapter is here:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/2006/RAND_RP1214.pdf

This was a study based on the social-psychological and sociological literature used in different regions, persuasive instruments used whether through media or personal contacting in closed settings such as prison or paramilitary training camps, open-source, academic, and journalistic accounts used in the past and an assessment of those who seek to join al-Qaida.

Recruitment ‘pitches’ are tailored to the audience; encouraging a youth to leave home may be couched in patriotic terms if from a privileged class, as social advancement if an immigrant and struggling, or as being revolutionary/self-discovery if the family is disapproving. When terrorist groups are banned from school campuses, they disguise activities to avoid interference.

There is no single process but there are as many methods used as there are distinct regions, and they change over time as circumstances change.

The ‘net pattern’ for example is used when the target demographic is homogenous, there is little serious opposition, and a video may be sent to every member of a congregation, or every student is invited to a weekend retreat. A typical example would be a mosque headed an imam who is recognized as ‘radical,’ or a region such as the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan.

The ‘funnel approach’ is incremental, phased, and the target population is ripe for recruitment yet requires significant transformation in identity and motivation, uses culling along the way, hazing rituals, identity building exercises, and indoctrination into radical Islam and the use of violence to achieve its goals. Those who don’t progress to the end are sometimes used as intermediaries for recruitment.

The ‘infection approach’ is used in insulated populations and works from within by using a trusted agent who uses direct and personal appeals. Typical targets are organizations such as police and military, starting first with members who are dissatisfied with their jobs, have grudges against the government, and regionally this works best in places like Kenya and Tanzania where most of the population is unsympathetic to al-Qaida but selected individuals can be recruited.

The ‘seed crystal’ is used where open recruiting is difficult or impossible, yet this was the method used to recruit the Hamburg cell, the plotters of the 9/11 attack. It’s a longer process, information is sent to the target group over time, and clandestine recruiters are trained to recognize those who are susceptible to recruitment.

Every form of mass media is used (newspapers, radio, television, web) as well as sermons, rumors, education and training. Textbooks that support the ideology are supplied to schools where its reading is then made mandatory.

Methods used are sidewalk proselytizing, festivals, demonstrations, rehabs, kin/peer proselytizing, rituals, seminars, schooling, training, niche marketing such as magazines, web sites, newspapers such as Samizdat, car-trunk videos, tv, radio broadcast, posters, and threaded chat.

Prisons, refugee camps, opportunities offered during wartime such as occupation are typically good settings. Recruiters comingle and target individuals or small groups they believe are best targets such as young single men, devout members of a particular religious congregation, and those who respond to jihadist or martyrdom videos.

Some methods are Arab newspaper ads decrying the US and its role in Iraq and Israel, individuals recovering from addictions in private clinics; they attend prayer sessions in a neighbor’s living room, infiltrate government paramilitary training, and vocational tutoring of individuals. They heavily use personal recommendations, using family members, and tailor the personal appeal depending on the individual.

Since the loss of the training camps in Afghanistan, and through the experience of building personal networks from fighting jihads in Chechnya, Iraq, etc, password protected web sites and restricted internet chat groups have emerged ‘virtual jihad,’ allowing for the impact on many targets at once and has a more favorable controlled environment without interference.

Characteristics of those targeted: high level of current distress, dissatisfaction, cultural disillusionment, unfulfilled idealism, lack of religious belief or value system, dysfunctional family system, and dependent personality tendencies.

Richard Reid, the ‘shoe bomber’ had at least 4 of the above 5 characteristics. His father was in prison for most of his adult life, parents were separated when he was young, cultural non-assimilation in the UK, attended all white schools, was living a life of petty crime and then converted to Islam in prison in his 20s. His imam described him as having ‘weak character’ and being ‘very, very impressionable.’

Common techniques begin with initial contact resulting in subsequent and more intense contacts, an identity transformation process such as joining a group as a self-identified member.

Common to all techniques used is that they exploit and create physical and mental trauma to produce a dissociative state in the target individual – identity, memory, consciousness, awareness and rational thought are in flux; and then a transformation is made.

No mention of whether these guys were tortured & we know that torture leads to heavier recruitment for the bad guys.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21gitmo.html?_r=1

****************
” ‘I don’t doubt that the President–and I think he’ll say this tomorrow–that we’ve made some hasty decisions that are now going to take some time to unwind. And closing Guantanamo Bay obviously is one of those decisions,’ [Robert Gibbs}added.
….
“Gibbs’ comment appears to affirm some White House critics who argued that closing Guantanamo Bay was a policy shift easier said than done.”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/05/20/white_house_closing_gitmo_a_hasty_decision_96593.html

***************
Statement of Purpose: To prohibit funding to transfer, release, or incarcerate detainees detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to or within the United States.
Vote Counts:
YEAs 90
NAYs 6
Not Voting 3

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00196#name

H/T Commentary Blog

I see from O’R last nite that Jesse Ventura said on The View that we only torture muslims; never white guys like McVey. and,”everyone” knows that no useful info is ever gathered from torture.

More moral preening.

First he & the babes assume that the Bush EITs were torture, which point we’ve exhausted,

Next, it’s difficult to determine what results any interrogation technique will produce, even the coffee & doughnuts from your alleged buddy, the good cop, technique. We have to rely on the skill of the interrogators to separate the wheat from the chaff. Only those suffering from an acute case of BDS doubt that EITs did, indeed, produce some life-saving info from some of these guys. It’s also clear to anyone with a brain (confirmed by the CIA leak referred to in my post #216) that now that all detainees know (the interrogation memos, a/k/a, “Torture” memos are a “CIA Tactics For Dummies” handbook) that nothing untoward will be done unto them (The One said that, & he means it, no? Well, today he means it!); none of them will tell us anything of value, regardless of how we threaten them. Not a good result, methinks.

And as I, a lawyer, can tell you, some interrogation techniques that would produce a mistrial in a criminal case or result in evidence being excluded as improperly “gathered”, may & must be used for military intelligence gathering. If that’s what one is after. And, now they aren’t being used anymore (The One said that, & he means it, no? Well, today he means it!) & haven’t been used since 2004 or 2005, alas.

Someone once said that the ACLU thinks that all military trials are kangaroo proceedings where the accused is dragged before a panel of sadistic martinets, convicted on the basis of perjured evidence (which has been extracted by torture), & sentenced to fifty or sixty years of solitary confinement, chained to the wall of a subterranean dungeon, & fed on bread & water. Interestingly enough, in regard to the alleged terrorists, if one reads Justice Roberts’ dissent in Boumediene & Deborah Burlingame’s WSJ article two weeks ago, one gets a different picture.

As either Roberts’ or Scalia noted, it would’ve been fun to have tried all the German prisoners on U.S. soil in WW II in Federal Courts. Hey, FDR could’ve gotten more appointees to the Federal Bench!

But, in the end a naïf like Jesse V is confusing information produced from Military Intelligence Gathering with evidence appropriate to be introduced in a Civilian or Military court for purposes of a conviction. This is what the Left wants to do: make us conduct Military Intelligence Gathering techniques in the same limited manner in which we are allowed to interrogate suspects in the civilian criminal trial process. EITs are for Military Intelligence Gathering in situations concerning credible threats to the Country’s security, its continuance as a Nation. EITs are not a technique for a beleaguered constable who can’t find any evidence for a criminal trial.

Let me spell it out again for the Jesse V’s: none of the info obtained only from the coercive EIT methods described would be allowed as evidence for conviction of the perp in a military court or civilian court trial. Ya see, then it wouldn’t be what we refer to as a trial! And, if a confession or other evidence which the prosecutor intends to use against a defendant in a criminal trial were proven to have been coerced, such defendant does not have a further burden of proving that such coercion amounted to “torture”.

The Law of War hasn’t changed. Just Administrations.

PMS is a term coined by my wife and daughter to signify the mental torture I was subjected to during that time of the months — “Phil Must Suffer”.

Being subjected to the moral relativism and circular logic of his position as the simultaneous anti-torture, pro-torture-by-others-as-long-as-it’s-not-him-if-a-court-says-it’s-okay champion of human rights, makes me wish for the good old days when I only had to deal with screaming hormones.

As you’ve noted, there’s really not much more to say other than to point out the unintended comedic value of his comments.