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'Waterboarding is torture,' says Obama

The U.S. should not be torturing people. The Geneva Convention defines something like waterboarding as torture, and in the least would call for a review of this practice. The government knows it's wrong, which is why they did it in territory outside of the Geneva Convention.

I'm not surprised at all that our government tortures people. There are probably other foreign facilities that we don't even know about where other kinds of grusome techniques are employed. I just wish our government would stop trying to act all self-righteous like it's something we would never do. Our government likely tortures people all the time in classified scenarios.
 
I wasn't aware that the practice had been stopped. This is one situation where I'm quite pleased to be wrong.


Considering that it is well publicized now that there were only three individuals that were ever subjects of waterboarding it should have been well known, even by the true believers of liberal propaganda.

j-mac
 
The U.S. should not be torturing people. The Geneva Convention defines something like waterboarding as torture, and in the least would call for a review of this practice. The government knows it's wrong, which is why they did it in territory outside of the Geneva Convention.

I'm not surprised at all that our government tortures people. There are probably other foreign facilities that we don't even know about where other kinds of grusome techniques are employed. I just wish our government would stop trying to act all self-righteous like it's something we would never do. Our government likely tortures people all the time in classified scenarios.


Your suppositions are not evidence of anything other than your willingness to believe the worst of your own country.

j-mac
 
The Geneva Convention is real. I suggest you read it.


And I suggest you offer some fact instead of your opinions, and then there can be real dialogue. Sans that you are just showing your arse, and one would wonder what hypocrisy you tell yourself to remain in a country you loathe.


j-mac
 
How do these supposed brightest and best who are handled by the supposed brightest and best manage to step in dog **** all the time?? Correct answer should have been:

Waterboarding is now illegal...President Obama signed an Executive Order making it so. I'm OK with that.

Christ, don't these people know how to pick their battles?
 
How do these supposed brightest and best who are handled by the supposed brightest and best manage to step in dog **** all the time?? Correct answer should have been:



Christ, don't these people know how to pick their battles?


Not to mention that I feel like the debates are constantly stuck in 2007 purposely to not have to address what is going on now.


j-mac
 
Article 3

Article 3 says:
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions: 1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) Taking of hostages;
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
 
How do these supposed brightest and best who are handled by the supposed brightest and best manage to step in dog **** all the time?? Correct answer should have been:

Christ, don't these people know how to pick their battles?

Considering that an executive order was what resulted in the tortures in the first place, I see it as poetic justice that an executive order has ended it.

Congress should never have given POTUS this kind of signing authority, or the authority to deploy our standing army to anywhere in the world without a Congressional vote. At least Obama used it to end tortures that were a complete and utter embarrassment to our international reputation, but for the record I do not believe he should have such signing authority.
 
Considering that an executive order was what resulted in the tortures in the first place, I see it as poetic justice that an executive order has ended it.

Congress should never have given POTUS this kind of signing authority, or the authority to deploy our standing army to anywhere in the world without a Congressional vote. At least Obama used it to end tortures that were a complete and utter embarrassment to our international reputation, but for the record I do not believe he should have such signing authority.

I doubt that the Executive Order countermanded any existing law. It simply established policy. That's probably what it's bests used for. But I do agree with you...too much authority in many instances. And deploying? I'm soooo with you on that one.
 
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[FONT=Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Read full article here: [/FONT]'Waterboarding is torture,' says Obama - CSMonitor.com
[FONT=Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Is this a campaign stunt to gain support? Yes. Do i agree with what he has to say about water boarding? Absolutely. I also believe it is torture..[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Thoughts?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Comments?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Response? [/FONT]


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It's much more humane to launch missiles from drones and maim and kill people without 100% guaranteeing you're getting the right people.
 
Waterboarding is something that we put Japanese military officers on trial for, after WWII. The US always regarded the practice as torture until the Necons took power. Then, under Bush, everything changed. Now it has changed again, and for the better.

The WWII example is a fail, as usual with you. What were the Japanese officers hoping to accomplish with waterboarding? Getting vital information in a timely manner under strict controls or punishing American's for being the enemy?

There in is the definition of "torture", and the one the Progressives are so dishonest about.
 
It's much more humane to launch missiles from drones and maim and kill people without 100% guaranteeing you're getting the right people.

We never signed any treaty or convention saying we wouldn't do that, unlike the Geneva Convention on Torture. Not only that, but we were one of the nations who put forth the motion to create a torture amendment in the first place. It's why we've lost a lot of face.

But yes... you're right, bombing is also quite inhumane.
 
The WWII example is a fail, as usual with you. What were the Japanese officers hoping to accomplish with waterboarding? Getting vital information in a timely manner under strict controls or punishing American's for being the enemy?

There in is the definition of "torture", and the one the Progressives are so dishonest about.
You realize that your argument that it is okay to waterboard someone if you have good intentions
is the same as arguing that it is okay to break the arms of someone if you have good intentions.
 
We never signed any treaty or convention saying we wouldn't do that, unlike the Geneva Convention on Torture. Not only that, but we were one of the nations who put forth the motion to create a torture amendment in the first place. It's why we've lost a lot of face.

But yes... you're right, bombing is also quite inhumane.

Waterboarding for information is not torture. Waterboarding prisoners as punishment IS.
 
You realize that your argument that it is okay to waterboard someone if you have good intentions
is the same as arguing that it is okay to break the arms of someone if you have good intentions.

I'd break knuckles and knee caps if the situation warranted it.
 
We never signed any treaty or convention saying we wouldn't do that, unlike the Geneva Convention on Torture. Not only that, but we were one of the nations who put forth the motion to create a torture amendment in the first place. It's why we've lost a lot of face.

But yes... you're right, bombing is also quite inhumane.

Torture and International Law
The War Crimes Act of 1966 (18 USC Section 2441) prohibits any "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions.

The Third Geneva Convention states that prisoners of war must always be "humanely treated" (Article 13) and prohibits "physical and mental torture, [and] any other form of coercion" (Article 18).

The Fourth Geneva Convention states that civilian prisoners must be protected from "cruel treatment and torture" and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment" (Article 3).

The Bush administration argued that enemy combatants are neither prisoners of war nor civilians, but rather fall into an intermediate category of unlawful combatants. In January 2009, the Obama administration rejected this distinction.

If waterboarding one guy 183 times doesn't qualify as "cruel treatment and torture," I sure don't know what does.

In April 2009, a memo released by the Obama administration revealed that terror suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003. This suggests that use of waterboarding in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks was most likely not rare.
 
Waterboarding for information is not torture. Waterboarding prisoners as punishment IS.

We're all aware of the little grey area that George W. Bush put our country into when he water boarded terrorism suspects and enemy combattants, but everyone knows that if you waterboard someone 183 times it's torture.

I don't know what dimension you come from, but making people think they are about to die of drowning - repeatedly, hundreds of times over months of interrogation - is torture. Obama agrees and the Executive Order is in.

Now stop apologizing for torturers everywhere. It makes our country look bad.
 
Of course waterboarding is torture. I remember when this was a constant source of discussion here a couple of years ago. All definitions and information that I read and looked up designated waterboarding as torture. Whether it is or it isn't really is not the issue, though, and that's the point that always got overlooked during these discussions. Waterboarding is torture... the issue is, should we use it or not? Now, we know from research that torture is not a reliable method of extracting data. Does it work? Sometimes, but not reliably. However, the question still remains, should we use torture during interrogations?
 
Of course waterboarding is torture. I remember when this was a constant source of discussion here a couple of years ago. All definitions and information that I read and looked up designated waterboarding as torture. Whether it is or it isn't really is not the issue, though, and that's the point that always got overlooked during these discussions. Waterboarding is torture... the issue is, should we use it or not? Now, we know from research that torture is not a reliable method of extracting data. Does it work? Sometimes, but not reliably. However, the question still remains, should we use torture during interrogations?

It should be an option, used rarely, and only on people who have information vital to saving lives and are... uncooperative.
 
Waterboarding for information is not torture. Waterboarding prisoners as punishment IS.

Interesting. So essentially you're saying that it's not the method that determines whether or not it's torture, but that it's intent? Sorry, but that's a load of bull****. Ripping someone's fingernails out or breaking their fingers on purpose is torture, period, regardless of why you're doing it.
 
Waterboarding for information is not torture. Waterboarding prisoners as punishment IS.
What definition of torture makes that distinction?
I don't think that US laws do that.
 
Of course waterboarding is torture. I remember when this was a constant source of discussion here a couple of years ago. All definitions and information that I read and looked up designated waterboarding as torture. Whether it is or it isn't really is not the issue, though, and that's the point that always got overlooked during these discussions. Waterboarding is torture... the issue is, should we use it or not? Now, we know from research that torture is not a reliable method of extracting data. Does it work? Sometimes, but not reliably. However, the question still remains, should we use torture during interrogations?


Being honest about it, I would say that depends on the severity of threat, and immanence of attack. Also, the conventional nature of the enemy we face. If our enemy in this war declared on us were a conventional enemy then methods for intel gathering would be a clear violation, however we don't fight a conventional enemy in this war, more like lying cowards that hide behind women and children, use no identifying characteristics like uniform, and are signatories to no conventions or treaties that govern their actions in civil warfare. In fact they are called to lie, cheat, or torture themselves in order to achieve their own ends, and those that argue that we are to tie our hands behind our backs in order to be 'better', do not understand the first thing about what war is, or how it is won.

j-mac
 
Of course waterboarding is torture. I remember when this was a constant source of discussion here a couple of years ago. All definitions and information that I read and looked up designated waterboarding as torture. Whether it is or it isn't really is not the issue, though, and that's the point that always got overlooked during these discussions. Waterboarding is torture... the issue is, should we use it or not? Now, we know from research that torture is not a reliable method of extracting data. Does it work? Sometimes, but not reliably. However, the question still remains, should we use torture during interrogations?

I think it should be on the table. In fact, I think all forms of torture should be on the table, the same way military action should be an option when all other diplomatic options are exhausted. But we should also recognize that they should be the last line of defense, and are in general ineffective. If, as an interrogator, you feel like you have to resort to torturing someone, then chances are that you didn't do your homework up until that point and screwed up elsewhere along the line.

In general, I believe that violence should be the option of last resort, but it should be an option. Doesn't make torturing a smart thing to do, though.
 
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