Word: pretender
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Torture and Intelligence Re "Dumb Intelligence," [May 4]: Robert Baer thinks "persuasion" is far more effective than torture. I don't pretend to understand the merits of techniques for extracting intelligence from prisoners. But as a veteran, I believe that al-Qaeda operatives are not garden-variety prisoners who would respond to persuasion; they have proved to be hate-filled extremists who place no value on human life, including the lives of their own people. Baer suggests they would give false information under torture to "stop the pain" whereas persuasive techniques would encourage them to tell the truth. That doesn...
...Dumb Intelligence," [May 4]: Robert Baer thinks "persuasion" is far more effective than torture. I don't pretend to understand the merits of techniques for extracting intelligence from prisoners. But as a veteran, I believe that al-Qaeda operatives are not garden-variety prisoners who would respond to persuasion; they have proved to be hate-filled extremists who place no value on human life. I don't like torture either, but if it proves to obtain information that puts a stop to future bloodshed--as it has, according to experts--then I say please resume. John Stern, GRAND HAVEN, MICH...
...Except that life is much messier and all the odds were against them, and in a real sense it diminishes Bristol's challenge, and her clear determination to meet it, to pretend otherwise. Only 4 in 10 teenage mothers finish high school; less than 2% of girls who have babies under 18 will finish college by the time they are 30; just waiting until 20 or 21 increases the odds fourfold. Two thirds of families of young unwed mothers are poor. When pregnant teens do marry, they are 50% more likely to get divorced than those who marry without being...
...been total war thus far, and both the state and the tigers have committed severe human-rights violations (the state itself has refused to allow the United Nations Human Rights Council to conduct an investigation). It is in Sri Lanka’s best interest not to pretend that ethnic violence on both sides did not occur. A sustainable peace cannot include any demonization of the Tamils, whether it is direct or indirect through the continued framing of the Tigers—who are heroes to many Tamil youth—as the source of all evil on the island...
...same when he felt a sore throat and headache develop on April 22. But the next day his temperature shot up to 102 degrees and his throat closed so tightly he could hardly breathe. "I didn't want to upset my wife and daughters, so I tried to pretend it wasn't so bad," he says. "But then the pain became so much I couldn't even stand up or sit on the sofa. I just lay on the floor and tried to breathe." (Check out a story on whether the alarm over swine flu was justified...