Maybe we should put Mr. Commentator through what the prisoners who are being held illegally against the constitution get through. Yes put a couple of electrodes on commentator's balls and crack up the voltage. Let's see if we can get him to admit we planned to attack my mama 28 years ago and steal a candy cane from her and then blow up my daddy's truck.

I BET YOU ANYTHING, with the electrode on his balls and drowning him, he'll admit that he's an alien from Jupiter.

The mob mentality is permeating through our society and all senses of loyalty to the Constitution are fading quickly-all for revenge.

What the Republicans want and most people want is revenge and will kill or torture any middle eastern person (doesn't matter who it is) to get it. It is well known that torture is not effective, so it is quite obvious revenge and the satisfaction of sadistic wants is the primary goal here.

This is how the Nazis in Germany convinced regular people that killing the Jews is okay. The Nazis used fear and accusations that people were not patriotic if they did not stand for the extermination of the Jews.

This is the road we are heading down.

Some people, who happen to be Democrats still believe in our Constitution and are trying to stop the practice of torture which is fundamentally wrong and a slap in the nations fore fathers' face.

But mob mentality is growing...

It is a scary beginning of a new era in this country's lifeline.

"we should tell our enemies exactly what we are going to do to get information out of them. That way they can train against our techniques "

Yes let's tell them we will put them in a naked pyramid and electrodes on their balls, so that they can somehow numb the nerve endings in their balls and "train against our techniques".

What a great idea!

I agree, we are backsliding and the values inherent in our Constitution that made our country great, are now being treated as useless by the majority of the Republicans and about half of Americans.

This president and administration took us on a great backslide with its reaction to 911 by attacking a country that had nothing to do with it which resulted in the world turning on us.

Let's see what the next jack in the box will do for our country. Lord help us-we are headed towards doom.

I agree with Nancy about this administration, especially since Mr. Bush called the Constitution "a goddamn piece of paper."

It is obvious he doesn't care about our most sacred document, as he's been violating it every chance he gets!

Someone throw him into one of the secret illegal prisons he's built and put his own electrodes that he uses to torture people on his balls! But that should not be done because that is against the Constitution, which I would uphold.

He should be impeached though.

Torture was used widely in the Dark Ages. Now torture is emerging as an acceptable method.

Health care in this country has slipped to an all time low (we are now 37 just ahead of Slovenia), education costs are increasing at such an alarming rate that it is quite feasible that only the rich will be able to afford it in the near future, and the middle class is shrinking, which means the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.

And the focus of this article is how we should torture poor people without due process.

Pathetic.

How did we get from water boarding to electrodes? After 35 seconds of water boarding a senior al qaeda member gave up information about almost a dozen terror plots. This information saved thousands of lives. As to using waterboarding on Americans, Every American military member who works in aviation or special forces is subjected to waterboading during the escape and evade training. I don't consider waterboarding to be torture. I do believe that the U.S. should have regulations concerning interrogation and I don't think we should torture people, but Whatever methods we are going to use should be decided behind closed doors. None of this information should be made public. In other words don't torture, but don't tell people you are not going to torture them also. Just because we are not going to do it doesn't mean we have to advertise that we are not going to do it.

Damn it John I like you man. Now I pretty much completely agree with John on this matter. But I would also like to inform some of you that torture can be effective if used correctly. if someone is tortured for more then 30-36 hrs then yes the information after that time is more then likely useless but before that it can be relatively helpful. Oh and those guys bein held in our prisons aren't bein held wrongly. Our constitution has no effect on them one way or the other. The only international protection any military person has is the Geneva Convention.

And the Geneva convention only covers armed combatants in uniform.

Unfortunately, some of our readers do not understand how "torture" for informaton works. You don't force people to admit to anything. Guilt is determined through standard investigative techniques the same way we prosecute our home grown criminals. "Torture" is used to gather information that is usually used pro-actively to assist in defending against future enemy action such as helping us find contacts, terror cells and bomb makers who actually do exist (since we do find them using this information and often catch them "red handed") and would still be killing people if we didn't find them by using these techniques. As for the "nazi" comment, 99% of you have no idea what the nazis did to the people of their occupied territories, their own citizens, Jews, and don't forget our captured soldiers, against the Geneva Convention. The things we do to gather information are not nearly as horrible or barbaric as some of you would like to believe, just to further your anti-U.S. or anti-govt./republican/bush hate speech. Our techniques are sadly so humane we often miss information that would have put a stop to this war long ago, simply because we won't do to our enemy what they would gladly do to any of you who are defending them just to further their own cause, a cause which most of them don't believe in unless there is good money to be made. Most of the enemy we find are later identified as mercenaries who travel the middle east looking for someone to hate. Many of them have killed on both sides of the conflict because in reality, they simply love the violence of it all and can get paid to do it. To many of our best intentioned young people believe what they hear and see in their political circle of friends instead of what they have faced for real and held in their own two hands, with their feet on the soil they seem to think they know so much about. I've been there. I know. I've worked among and around all of our friends and our enemies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, most of Europe and surprisingly to most of you, South and Central America (including Mexico) and in case you can't tell, not as a tourist. I'll finish with three gifts for our doubting friends and I call them friends because even though they are often mislead by our democratic infrastructure, I will continue to serve them and "our " country as a loyal believer in the U.S.A. after seeing all the other options and understanding first hand that this is the best place on the planet. GIFT ONE. No matter what you hear, I'm telling you up front that with my feet on the ground all over the world, unless their is an underlying political agenda, most "everyday joe citizens" of every country in the world still think the U.S.A. is the best country in the world and would do anything to get here. This comes not from some overseas news desk, but from living as a local among the people of these different lands (that's my specialty) and hearing their everyday thoughts on everything from their family life to world politics. GIFT TWO. You can't learn anything when you're too buisy talkin'. My grandfather, born in 1898 is still correct with that statement. Stop talking about a world you've only read or heard about. Our people do more good for the rest of the world (even for those who harbor our enemies) than any other nationality anywhere, period. If you want to change the world for the better, roll up your sleeves and do it. Not by protesting your own people or government, but by lending a hand to finish all the jobs we've already started and comitted ourselves to. GIFT THREE. Stop letting people (even your friends) try to convince you there are different sides to this stuff or that the always present "they and them" are always against you. THAT is how the nazi's came to power in the first place. They seperated their own country and loaned power only to those who followed their line of thinking. Bottom line is this. We are all on this planet together. What we save, we save for us all. What we waste, we will all have to do without. Peace to all.