Ventura on The View: If waterboarding is fine, why don’t cops do it?
Published: May 18, 2009
Updated 6 months ago
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, making a guest appearance on ABC’s The View, gave co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck a lesson or two about the torture technique known as waterboarding.
Ventura, who underwent a barrage of torture techniques at the military Survival, Evade, Resist and Escape (SERE) school, confirmed for Hasselbeck that waterboarding is torture and not just an “enhanced interrogation technique.”
“If waterboarding is okay, why don’t we let our police do it to suspects to learn what they know?” he asked to a chorus of applause.
“That’s an interesting question,” Hasselbeck said. “I understand that question.”
“If waterboarding is okay, why didn’t we waterboard [Timothy] McVeigh and [Terry] Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombers, to find out if there were more people involved? What’s your answer to that?” he asked. “We only seem to waterboard Muslims.”
“That’s an extremist statement,” said Hasselbeck.
“Aha!” cheered Ventura. “Have we waterboarded anybody else? Name me someone else we’ve waterboarded.”
She could not, instead shifting focus to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who has been criticized by Republicans for a seeming contradiction in disclosing what she knew about then-President Bush’s torture program, and when.
“They want her out because she lied?” asked Ventura. “Why didn’t they ask for Bush and Cheney to go out when they lied about why we went into Iraq?”
This video is from MSNBC’s News Live, broadcast May 18, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
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No fair picking on a handicapped person; Hasselbeck cleary is a functional moron who is limited to a few simple words and phrases, much like a parrot.
“That’s an extremist statement,” said Hasselbeck.” Since when is making a factual statement “extremist”? He made an excellent point. Why aren’t the police waterboarding suspects? Why aren’t the police beating people, stripping them naked, putting them in fake coffins, tying electrodes to their fingers while in the shower? Oh yeah…cause its illegal!!!
Thats interesting -Hasselwhatsit is calling Ventura an extremist because he adds 2 and 2 and gets 4.
At this point there is no hope for all those people foolish enough to contend that waterboarding is not torture. They’ve been exposed to the details enough to where they understand what the act is. They are permanently wacked in the brain, and they’ll never reach a state of intellect greater than your average 9 year old. They’re useless parasites on society.
the awesomness of ventura nearly tore a hole in space itself. Man is an american hero, he’s paid his dues to his nation on the battle field, what has all the chickenhawks done?
I can’t believe how quickly he shoots a hole in the complete concept of torturing Muslims. If its so cool, why don’t we have our cops using it? Why didn’t they use it on McVey and his many buds that were swept up in the investigation?
This is the guy that rounds out the “dream team”. Put him in right behind Joe Scarbourough, or better still stick him right in that peanut gallery of bobble-heads that surround him every morning. The ratings would go through the roof.
Elizabeth is one of many right wing dumb blonde bimbo b*tches.
Seems like Hasselbeck never made her point, if she had one, that is. Arguing that water boarding is acceptable, then shifting gears and saying”Pelosi knew about it!”
That’s no argument, that’s a GOP talking point.
Someone please waterboard her so she’ll shut up! Get her ignorant ass off the TV.
Ventura’s got this “everyman” persona who seems to speak at the street level, who can penetrate the niceties of equivocation and go right to the heart of the matter. As with other audiences, their response is nearly joyous relief– that someone is actually saying, in front of national cameras, what they believe.
He made Hasselbeck look foolish and stupid, which is frankly what Hasselbeck really is. Although I have to compliment her on her ability to change the subject.
eyeballkid —
This is the most important take-away point from this video. Ventura is so unusual in this respect, so uncanny how he seems able to say what we’re thinking but unlike most of us, he’s unstoppable in saying it. He reminds me of Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza on his shoulders.
What he says is one thing, but I wonder if anyone else could say it with the same authority, even using the same words. He’s a fascinating character. He’d make a great president but as he has stated, there’s a huge risk involved in crossing the Deep State crime syndicate.
He was able to talk over Hasselbeck which is a good thing. And I agree with you also Satan and natty about the thousands that we have killed. But Scubydoo your spot on, spot on. She didn’t have an answer to what he said about why we don’t waterboard criminals or the Oklahoma bombers to find out more information. What Hasselbeck has turned into is a right wing blonde nut thats it. That “Extremist” comment that she said to Jessie was out and out a talking point rebutal to when somebody calls them out on something they have no answer to. “Extremism is a term used to describe the actions or ideologies of individuals or groups outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards.” This was part of a wiki quote about this subject, and for her of all people to not know that maybe SHE is the Extemist and not Jessie by definition tells you that she’s an idiot.
Bush and Cheney was using torture to justify the attack on Iraq. What everybody knows and are slowly coming around to saying in public is that Bush with Cheney lied us into a war for their own gain at the cost of thousands of lives. Both the Democrats and the Republicans know but are in a mexican standoff because many of their members on both sides signed off on this and don’t want to be pulled into this mud. Our political elite and their sycophants have turned our govt. and country into a dysfuctional place and the world can see it.
Totally correct!
All this hubaloo about waterboarding is nothing more than a manufactured distraction from all of the real and COMPLICIT crimes committed during the last eight years, namely: the illegal invasion by the U.S.A. on Iraq based on lies, warrantless wiretapping of all American citizens, and the obvious apparent inside-job which was 9/11.
They’d rather have the public focus on the waterboarding of a few individuals than these other huge crimes which cost the lives of hundreds of thousands.
WAKE UP!!!
Jesse is well and publicly aware of 9/11 Truth, as he said on the Alex Jones show, after several years of believing the official story.
Wake up yourself -you want us to fall for your crap and stop investigating torture? What are you -an idiot or a troll like “Satan” the third poster on this thread? In fact I bet you are the same person under another name -I have never seen this moronic argument before today, and now I see it TWICE in the same thread. Ridiculous.
I am soooooooooooo glad someone FINALLY bitch-slapped that fucking bimbo! And, like a typical repuglicunt, she attempts to distract from the topic at hand and bring up what Pelosi knew, didn’t know, and when she knew it. Thankfully, Ventura further bitch-slapped that fucking idiot on that one, too.
Elizabeth Hasselbeck should be the poster child for why abortions should continue to stay legal.
Sure, there are bigger crimes out there, but more often than not, perps get tripped up on a lesser offense. Good luck convincing the sheep that 911 was an inside job - even the more intelligent of my friends dismiss it out of hand. On the other hand, everyone knows that torture is abhorrent, except possibly EH and some other morally challenged narcissists.
JV was spot on with his “muslim” comment, which notably rattled EH. Perhaps, she can stretch her two neurons and imagine herself or her immediate family tortured, screaming: but we are not muslim.
It was disappointing that the crowd was unresponsive on this one. Xenophobia runs deep in the human race. It reminds me of the time the Gombe chimps made war on their former relatives who had broken away and formed the Kamakela community. They twisted their arms and legs off like they were prey. (Through A Window by Jane Goodall)
Michael Rivero likes to remind his audience how much of our tax money is dedicated to “killing brown people”.
“Good luck convincing the sheep that 911 was an inside job”
Correct. There is not nearly enough Patriotism nor intellectual horsepower in Washington to begin an investigation on whether the towers fell per the party line or whether they fell due to controlled demolition (an hypothesis supported by a massive amount of evidence).
But if we’re able to pull the blinds open, and let the Sunshine in, that light will almost surely expose some irrefutable evidence to what really happened on that terrible day.
The key is a Special Prosecutor with subpoena power and a top secret clearance. If we allow congress to investigate they will, without any doubt whatsoever, perform a whitewash operation and bury the horrendous crimes forever. That is what they’ve always done (JFK, Iran/Contra, etc.)
Hasselbeck is nothing but a republiKKKon hack using their daily talking points. I could never make it through any more than a few minutes of this show. I can turn to Fox Entertainment and get the same thing.
Way to go Jesse, nice slap down of the blonde mental midget. It just blows my mind that republiKKKons are still supporting the use of torture inspite of finding the Japanses guilty of war crimes when they water boarded our troops during WWII. Our poor troops suffered untold torture from the Japanese only to have Bush/Cheney using the same techniques 60 years later.
Props to Satan and on down the scroll…
Ya…waterboarding and memos and pictures and former VPs chatting with other war criminals are rather fine, but about those 90 odd children murdered by the US in Afghanistan last week.
…and the same lying monsters then are doing it now. Why would anybody — ESPECIALLY Americans put up with this garbage.
Great fucking country…no your not Nazis. Shit no…it makes perfect sense to fire children’s teachers in order buy missiles so you can kill children AND their teachers.
So how’s Obama dog doing, anyway, huh? What’s it’s name…Blondie?
Hasselbeck is handicapped by having no brain or crutch to rely on when she hasn’t received her morning copy of right wing daily talking points.
You can tell how far down our civilization has gone down the hole, when we are trying to justify our crimes in torturing fellow humans. And the sick thing is that nobody and I mean nobody has equated what we did to what the japanese did to our troops or what the Nazi’s did to our troops when they captured them. At Neuremberg we said to the Nazi’s, following orders wasn’t an excuse yet our politicians are wanting to give the people who followed those orders a pass. Because since the orders they where given where vetted by higher ups, it must be right. I’m sure the Nazi higher ups vetted their orders also. I’m sure the Japanese officer who was hanged for waterboarding our troops in WWII can say that our culture and my superiors told me (vetted) to do this and it was right. Why aren’t we in the same league.
The reason is it’s alright if it’s an american that does it, but it’s not alright if a non-american does it to an american. It’s egocentric and ethnocentric. We can’t see the Hypocrisy of our actions and our words. If it’s so alright, why don’t we just pull out of the band on torture or everything else. It’s because it would open the gate to it being used on every and any american that goes overseas and caught in a crime and/or one of our soldiers being caught in war. Our politicians know if Elizabeth Hasselbeck or any number of the talking pundits or their families or many of the american audience where subject to even the appearance of torture or waterboarding, we would break quickly. It’s one thing to talk like you know what is going on, it’s another to actually back it up. They know it’s torture but don’t want to say the reason it’s okay for us to torture and nobody else. And that’s because where americans and we are right and your not and your wrong.
jjfcpa—-You’re a fucking idiot, right?
How is it that Hasselback is on ANY show????
Really….
“Satan”, “Dotmafia”, “Epson7″ and “jjfcpa” are all the same person (or perhaps affiliated) regurgitating the same crap in different personality styles. This “what about all the other bad things” twist is the new (and decidedly desperate) distraction effort to get us off the subject of torture -which means we’re getting close to something BIG.
Jesse looked like he wanted to rip that dumb bitches head off and shit down her neck…she is absolutely horrible, a real NAZI, she would’ve have been Lindy England’s perfect little helper at Abu Graub.
DON’T GIVE THEM IDEAS!!!
It’s not that far of a jump from “terrorists” to “narco-terrorists” to “drug crimes”. Now that torture has become normative expect it to be officially used by law enforcement. After all, if enhanced interrogation is good enough for The Troops it should be good enough for cops. Of course, they’d never misuse it. And it’s not actually torture.
How long before Bull Connor’s spiritual children would bring the hotbox for nigras? Months? Days?
Navy SEAL turned Professional Wrestler, Mayor of Brooklyn Park, then Governor of MN; Jesse Ventura was and still is impressive. Google his interviews (if you wanna know you’ll google it), listen to him and come to your own opinions. I did that and each time I see one of these interviews I remember those Gubernatorial debates and why I voted for him in the first place. Many people, State wide and National, tried to make him a joke…it didn’t work. He was elected Governor. He may be a little rough around the edges but he is real. He doesn’t answer to anyone else, paritsan or otherwise. He tells it like it is…period. He may not be known as the best of anything, but he’s good at so many things. If I were a betting person, I’d place mine on Ventura over any other political figure today, excluding Obama.
PS…just saw Michele Bachmann on TV…again.
Minnesotans… why did she get re-elected?
What scary is it’s the Hasselbecks and Sarah Palins of the world that are reproducing the most.
Has anyone seen Idiocracy?
Here it is Tuesday the 19th and I just watched Morning Joe (Republican rehab) and Joe’s head about exploded over Jessie Venturas’ appearance on the View. If you get a chance to view it I think you’ll agree with me that he’s a pretty deranged fella and if left to his own devices will wind up hurting someone. What’s with that bunch of bobble-heads taking turns talking over anybody that disagrees with them. It reminds me of Jon Stewart’s visit to crossfire…he needs to stop by Morning Joe’s place for a quick exorcism.
By the bye, Jessies’s gonna be on the Ed Show this pm on MSNBC, that should be exciting, maybe he’ll have a chance to bitch-slap Scarbourough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE
After reading all the comments I have come to the conclusion that
ignatzfattis is the troll. Who slaps people down who want to end war and investigate those accountable for starting the questionable and probably illegal war? (i am being diplomatic..of course it was an illegal war by and for war criminal ZIOcons)
Hate me if you like -I calls it as I sees it.
By the way -that’s an odd interpretation of the sentiment behind my comments -nothing could be further from the truth, I assure you.
i must say,
during this little foray (sp?)
my imagination lept.
how cool would it to have jesse ventura as president?!
the guy is like a mythical figure.
wrought from hell to heaven.
a true hero.
if this guy ever spoke anything - you’d believe him.
he’s the real deal.
he could kick anyone’s ass.
he’s a magnificent bastard.
he wouldn’t pull obama’s current hamlet -
he’d kick fucking ass.
obama, get your shit together.
ventura 2012 is a comer.
this guy takes no hostages.
he’s what we all want - truth, kicking fucking ass.
(we’ve been without it for too long.)
.
I agree with buchqjohnson1
“Bush and Cheney was using torture to justify the attack on Iraq. What everybody knows and are slowly coming around to saying in public is that Bush with Cheney lied us into a war for their own gain at the cost of thousands of lives.”
The Bush/Cheney Torture Conspiracy Must be exposed.
“Those guys were tortured, not to get info, but in an attempt to get fake confessions that there was a link between Iraq and Al Quada.”
Bush and Cheney tortured to cover their lies and manipulate Congress and public opinion. Federal crimes. Heinous Federal Crimes
Torture is never debatable. It Is a Federal Crime. A Capital Crime.
Why is Obama protecting them. Is Obama Soft On Crime? Does Obama support a double standard of Justice?
SIGN THE PETITION Calling For A Special Prosecutor for Torturers
http://ANGRYVOTERS.ORG
Over 250,000 have signed
Join Us
.
Jesse speaks for me…
As a former SEAL, JV knows that when we go through Escape and Evasion training we are subjected to “waterboarding”. This is in the US Military. We do this to our own trainees to help make them resistant to interrogation. Are people so uninformed as to think that this is something only the US does. A lot of you folks are just plain ignorant of the truth of warfare and it’s parts.