The debate spans two videos. (H/T Newsbusters via ECM)
Part 1:
Part 2:
Here is a good part:
THIESSEN: Excuse me, Philippe. I thought you said we’re not going to interrupt each other. Let me — it does. Let me tell you something. We – – we waterboarded in the CIA — the CIA waterboarded three terrorists, just three. Nobody waterboarded in Guantanamo. You know who else the U.S. government has waterboarded? Tens of thousands of American servicemembers during their SERE training.
We do not pull off their fingernails. We do not electrocute them with cattle prods. We do not pour hot oil down their nostrils or other forms of interrogation or do the things that were done to them in S-21. But we do waterboard them.
Do you not think, if waterboarding was torture, that one of those American servicemembers would have complained to his congressman, there would have been congressional hearings, and we would have — and it would have been banned by law? If we had been pulling off their fingernails, that would have happened.
And better still:
THIESSEN: But why would we give them Geneva Convention protections? They don’t merit Geneva Conventions protections. They’re terrorists.
The — the Geneva Conventions — this is one of the biggest myths about the Geneva Convention — it is not designed to govern the treatment of prisoners of war. It is designed to protect civilians, to get people to follow the laws of war. So if you give the same protections to someone who violates the laws of war as someone who follows them, you completely undermine the Geneva Conventions.
But the point is, these techniques, as applied by the CIA, produced intelligence that stopped a terrorist attack to blow up our consulate in Karachi, to blow up our Marine camp in Djibouti, to blow — for Al Qaida, who was — they were planning to hijack an airplane and fly it into Heathrow Airport and — and buildings in downtown London — I hope nowhere near your offices, Philippe — and they were planning to fly an airplane into Library Tower in — in — in Los Angeles.
So my question to Philippe is, which of these attacks would you prefer we hadn’t stopped?
This debate really shows the ignorance of national security issues on radically leftist propaganda networks like CNN. Facts are irrelevant to the left. They’re ignorant of the way the world really works, and their job is to act as an arm of leftist political parties. Republicans are grown-ups and Democrats are children. Children who are going to get us killed because they are dangerously unqualified to protect us from terrorist attacks. In 2010, we need to vote as many children as possible out of office.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
So the waterboarding that the “terrorists” were subjected to was the same as what US servicemen go through on their training? Riiiiight.
Notice how Thiessen didn’t really answer Phillipe’s question concerning waterboarding US servicemen abroad? He just blustered about the Geneva Convention (something the US only upholds when they’re on the receiving end of something that violates it) and “terrorism”, which, if you asked him to define it, and were he honest, he would have to answer “terrorism is what you do to us, but if we do it to you, it’s benign, humanitarian, for the greater good” and so on.
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The waterboarding technique used in both cases is identical according to to the CIA interrogators. Can you disprove them? “Riiiigght” is not an argument. The burden of proof is on you to prove that they did not follow procedures.
Let me help you to understand what terrorism is. Terrorism is when non-combatants who do not wear uniforms intentionally target civilians with violence in order to advance an large-scale ideology. Americans do not do that. Islamic terrorists do. I hope this provides you with KNOWLEDGE of how this works.
I recommend that you watch both videos again so that you gain an understanding of the fine work done by the CIA to keep us safe.
I’d like to see some citations to actual news stories in your reply if you want to make some claims.
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So there’s a procedure for waterboarding? I’d like to see it. Seeing as how it’s standard procedure / not torture etc, I assume the procedure is available to the public, if there’s nothing to hide.
Thanks for the offer to help, but the official US definition of terrorism, which is what I use, doesn’t mention anything about uniforms. How could it when you want to talk about terrorist states?
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Have you ever lived where those ‘terrorists’ commonly originated/found? I’m not talking about just any Muslim country by the way.
If you have, you would know why they’re called terrorists. They bring terror not just on citizens of another country, but even on their own neighborhood.
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I think that maybe he thinks that the United States fires rockets indiscriminately into Canadian and Mexican population centers as though we were morally equivalent to Hamas or Hezbollah.
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Man I got so mad watching the middle to end part of the first video cause they wouldn’t let Marc have a word, and then he just comes back in the second video and plays that Royal Flush like a pro.
“Which of these attacks would you prefer we hadn’t stopped?” Priceless.
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Amanpour’s best argument, “C’monnnn, Mark….No! C’monnnn Mark!”
Her only contribution to the debate was to interrupt Mark and prevent him from speaking.
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I spent my MLK day listening to talk radio which I never get to do. I listened to Prager, Medved, Hewitt and Levin. And I swear this “C’mon” argument comes up all the time with the challenging callers. All the time. They have no DATA. It’s unbelievable.
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At least when O’Reilly interrupts he’s usually saying something in rebuttal….and don’t get me started on Anne Coulter. She’s a caustic bunny but I think she’s an excellent debater, in good command of the facts and completely unintimidated by the liberals.
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