Juan Williams on enhanced interrogation techniques – teeth and eyeballs

Does Fox News contributor Juan Williams really think we pull out people’s teeth and eyeballs? He’s got an issue with enhanced interrogation techniques for certain, but when reality is not nearly as bad as you think, do you just start making stuff up out of thin air?

Williams was trying to make a point that torture is bad, and certainly poking one’s eyes out and pulling teeth can definitely be considered torture I guess, but Juan … we’re not doing that nor were we doing that.

Point Number One
I’m quite certain enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) are not used to gather new information. Think about the psychology of stress here. As many “anti-torture” folks like Williams like to point out, there are other ways to get information and the information gathered during an EIT session – even multiple sessions – is probably not all that reliable.

That’s why – during EIT – you never ask a question you do not already know the answer to.

Go back and read that last sentence again.

Of course, the detainee does not want to provide any information at all during the enhanced interrogation sessions for a multitude of reasons. They don’t even want to answer the really obvious questions. The techniques are used to gain compliance of the detainee, not to gather new information.

Once the detainee has “broken” and provided information we already know is true during EITs, that is a turning point for the detainee. After the EIT session is when the flood gates of new information is brought out, during the regular interrogation that Williams is comfortable with.

Williams needs to understand EITs do have an important role when it comes to gathering intelligence from high-value detainees.

Point Number Two
We never did any enhanced interrogation techniques at Gitmo. No waterboarding was done at Gitmo.

I’m just throwing that second one out there for those of you who did not know. Maybe President Obama found that out during his first year in office?

On to the video, courtesy Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SqwxUchYYQ

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

12 Comments

  1. gillie28 on May 9, 2011 at 8:51 am

    The strange thing was, no-one else on the panel called him on it.? Personally, don’t care if “enhanced” interrogation methods are used to get results.? Good grief, how stupid can political correctness get?



  2. Dimsdale on May 9, 2011 at 12:52 pm

    I think Juan’s, and every other Democrat/liberal/progressive/statist/socialist etc.? fundamental problem is that they sincerely believe that nobody can be more of an expert on a topic than they.? This is why they think they can outwit economic dynamics and human nature.
    ?
    It is the same kind of hubris that drives the AGW argument.



    • GdavidH on May 9, 2011 at 7:20 pm

      There’s an AGW argument? I thought doubters were primitive idiots and planet haters.



    • Eric on May 9, 2011 at 7:49 pm

      Oh, you were right. The nut cases who doubt that there isn’t any scientific proof of AGW are a simple-minded lot who need to be lead about constantly, unable to think for themselves. Global warming… what a joke!



  3. Eric on May 9, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    Juan Williams isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Like most liberals his empathy for the scum of humanity is his primary motivating thought. I don’t pay any attention to these nitwits. They have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about, though the guilt that they carry throughout their lives must be enormous! If it were up to me I’d start the questioning with the pulling out of a few fingernails before I offered these whacko killers a shot at some nice, refreshing water-boarding!



  4. johnboy111 on May 9, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    we don’t want this to be done to our guys[like dragging them thru the streets]but when it comes to stopping real damage to our country..what is ok?????



  5. Erik Blazynski on May 9, 2011 at 11:09 pm

    LOL? he is clearly speaking mephaphorically..? It is not about political correctness it is about doing the right thing.



  6. Linda Mae on May 10, 2011 at 12:12 am

    Water boarding is NOT torture.? Shouldn’t be said in the same sentence as the word.? It’s like having someone throw you into the pool.? People don’t realize 100 means 100 cups of water thrown into your face.? Many of our soldiers have be water boarded during their training.? Torture is not having the same body parts when it is over that you had when it began.? Check out the Torture museum in Iraq – google it.? Hussein’s tortures. Then, you’ll understand what the word torture means.



  7. Marilyn on May 10, 2011 at 6:43 am

    These folks always calim that the information can be gotten other ways, but they are never asked, nor do they say what those means are?.? Perhaps a picnic lunch on the grassy knoll.



  8. Tim-in-Alabama on May 10, 2011 at 7:40 am

    Juan might be confusing enhanced interrogation techniques with partial birth abortion.



    • Dimsdale on May 10, 2011 at 8:26 am

      You, sir, are a genius!? 😉



  9. drewsco on May 20, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    Steve M:

    It’s interesting how you defend enhanced interrogation techniques by prefacing your comments with the word “we”. I wasn’t aware that you worked as an interrogation specialist at Guantanamo.?
    The fact is that you?re simply?proposing conjectures on what you believe the intent and means of enhanced interrogation techniques are and thus, you evade the overall point that Juan Williams makes-that enhanced interrogation techniques are unnecessary and contrary to our values.
    Allow me to elaborate. You only address Juan Williams comment about pulling out a detainee?s eyeballs and teeth as if that was the main point of concern. You and I both know that it was much more than that and you neglect to rebut his overall assertion-that??enhanced interrogation techniques are fundamentally wrong, unnecessary, and contrary to American values.
    ?



square-juan-williams

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