The fact that one of these people is a congressional representative and the other has his own television show is the surest sign there is that we are a culture in very deep decline:
ALAN WEST: I would say this, the president is the benefactor of a lot of information that came from waterboarding and the most important thing is when you look at the precedent, non-state, non-uniform belligerents captured on the battlefield under the Geneva Convention are not afforded the same type of rights. We can make that determination. And as the president, you need to do those things which are necessary to make sure that the American people are kept safe. I see that when we continue to read Miranda rights to people such as the underwear bomber, we are using [sic] the advantage and leverage that we have. And furthermore in the movie G.I. Jane, Demi Moore was waterboarded and we do use that in military training and Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion training.
BRIAN KILMEADE (HOST): And she ended up with a much younger husband in real life.
WEST: That’s right.
They go on to discuss how West was court martialed and run out of the Army for torturing a prisoner. He’s proud of it.
But get this, (from Politicalcorrection):
West’s own experience using beatings, intimidation, and the fear of death to interrogate a detainee in Iraq actually illustrates the argument against torture: It just doesn’t work. West fired a gun next to the head of a detainee after letting his soldiers beat the man, who claimed not to have knowledge of the ambush West believed he had planned. Eventually the man described such a plan — not because it actually existed, but because it was what West wanted to hear.
No evidence of such a plan was ever found, and in a 2004 interview, West told the New York Times, “It’s possible that I was wrong about Mr. Hamoodi.”
Oh my God.
.