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Former President George W. Bush: We waterboarded Khalid Sheik Mohammed,

Are you arguing that the US government wanted Abu Ghraib to turn out the way it did?

I thought I looked at your profile awhile ago. I don't recall seeing "comedien" as your occupation. But, my eyes are starting to fail me. :mrgreen:

If you're looking to play ball.... It's been established that torture orders came down from Rummy, maybe even higher, thru Gen Sanchez. CIA spooks were in there directing those National Guardsmen in what to do. Those convicted were scapegoats for the likes of neo-cons Rummy, Cheeney and Bush's warped ideas of American honor.

Guantanamo was a disaster. Perhaps you read about all the admin Republican attorneys and judges resigning over it?

You are truly a funny guy! :2funny:

Please don't tell me you're going to claim otherwise. Your Leaning says "Slightly" Conservative.
:roll:
 
My apologies, I left "if they used waterboarding in the same fashion we did" off of the end. Didn't make much sense without it.



Abu Ghraib was a disaster because of policy breakdowns and individual malfeasance, not because we were trying to turn it into what it was. Gitmo is run perfectly fine.

From what I have read, Gitmo is not fine. Waiting years without representiton is not fine. Torture is not fine. There have been way too many cases at Gitmo that have fallen through the cracks.

But I digress. Torture is wrong. Especially when it is committed by a country that should be held to a much higher standard that the Taliban.
 
Torture is wrong.

Torture isn't always wrong. That's why moral justifications can even exist for it.

But because it is a very difficult line to tread, the government should always be prevented from utilizing it.


Just because an action may be morally justified and even morally "right", doesn't mean that the government should be granted the authority to engage in said action.
 
What a ridiculous rant, Zyph. :doh

I have never equated waterboarding vs beheading. One is torture, the other is outright murder. I hold the US to a higher standard than the Taliban, and would never imagine beheading to become US policy in a time of war. Then again, I never expected torture to be acceptable either. But that has happened, and the pedistal that the US sat high on when it came to world view on humane treatment came falling down. C'mon... you're better than that.
 
Torture isn't always wrong. That's why moral justifications can even exist for it.

But because it is a very difficult line to tread, the government should always be prevented from utilizing it.


Just because an action may be morally justified and even morally "right", doesn't mean that the government should be granted the authority to engage in said action.

I'll hear you out, Tucker. Give me a scenario were torture can be construed as morally right.
 
I thought I looked at your profile awhile ago. I don't recall seeing "comedien" as your occupation. But, my eyes are starting to fail me. :mrgreen:

If you're looking to play ball.... It's been established that torture orders came down from Rummy, maybe even higher, thru Gen Sanchez.

Evidence is requred for this claim.

CIA spooks were in there directing those National Guardsmen in what to do.

Evidence required for this claim.

Those convicted were scapegoats for the likes of neo-cons Rummy, Cheeney and Bush's warped ideas of American honor.

Guantanamo was a disaster. Perhaps you read about all the admin Republican attorneys and judges resigning over it?

You are truly a funny guy! :2funny:

Please don't tell me you're going to claim otherwise. Your Leaning says "Slightly" Conservative.[/B]

As you goosestep down the path with George Soros hand in hand, how about actually backing up these ridiculous claims of yours with resources outside wikipedia and moveon.org? :roll:
 
Ah, yeah, that's right - I, a petit 4'11" woman will not be trying to waterboard anyone no matter what - nor will I be slinging a gun or other some such.
What good is it to try to 'save my family' - in this fictitious situation - if I'm only going to get my ass handed to me in the process?
I would expect law enforcement to step in and handle it without resorting to taking time torturing someone.

Besides, torture leads to people dilvulging information which might not be accurate - I don't know how 'accurate' such information is, now, but back in the days of the salem witch trials and the spanish enquisition torture was used and false confessions came pouring out.

I'd rather have limited *real* information than overabundent *bull***** lies.

That is exactly the response I expected you to give.
 
Yeah you did. You took non-state actors and called them enemy combattants, which the Geneva Convention does not address.

So let me get this straight you're now asserting that the Geneva Conventions don't even address the issue of those who we have detained and yet assert that they are covered by the Geneva Conventions? You can't have it both ways.

The Geneva Conventions clearly outline who is a protected person, if a person does not fall into the category of non-combatant or lawful combatant then they are not protected by the Geneva Conventions except for Common Article 3 which states that their status will be determined by a competent tribunal which it was by our Executively (and then Congressionally created) military tribunal system.

Furthermore; even their protection under Common Article 3 is a clear misreading of the article in question in that the sentence "conflicts not of an international character" of Common Article 3 was clearly in reference to civil wars not international terrorism.

But regardless one thing is perfectly clear they neither fell under the category of protected persons and are thus do not fall under the purview of the Geneva Conventions. And as an aside it is good of you to acknowledge that Gaza and the West Bank are not covered under the Geneva Conventions either as they like unlawful enemy combatants are non-state actors.
 
If you're looking to play ball.... It's been established that torture orders came down from Rummy, maybe even higher, thru Gen Sanchez. CIA spooks were in there directing those National Guardsmen in what to do. Those convicted were scapegoats for the likes of neo-cons Rummy, Cheeney and Bush's warped ideas of American honor.

According to who? Common Dreams or Prison Planet?
 
Who they have prosecuted is not. In VN the US prosecuted US soldiers for waterboarding, the same practice done today.



Not the Japanese, US soldiers in VN.

Ya I mentioned that, this assertion as been thrown around a lot and to this day after repeated request no one can provide a case summary, the name of the case, or even the name of the soldier in question. Perhaps you'll have better luck than the rest of the people who all supplied the same un-cited article making the same unsubstantiated claims.
 
Here, you prove my point. On one hand you say "KSM certainly deserved it", implying punishment.

Then you say he "has vital and secret information about our enemies", implying you want to get actionable and reliable info from him to save "innocent Americans".

You can't have both goals, use the same actions and expect to get both results.

I am implying interrogation, he deserves to be interrogated by the harshest methods available.

And yes, I do want to get reliable and true evidence in order to save Americans. Non American citizens who have committed war crimes and the most atrocious acts of terrorism deserve absolutely no rights.

I can have both goals, I want justice and security. Not justice through torture, but security through harsh interrogation and justice through making the remainder of his existence a living hell.
 
If you condone torture, then you shouldn't complain about your own getting the same treatment.

I might have been more sympathetic about the whole waterboarding thing, if I hadn't seen that video of Pearl slowly, agonizingly being tortured to death by having his head sawn off with a serrated knife, screaming in pain and terror, FIRST before I ever heard about waterboarding.

I might have been more sympathetic about it if it wasn't something we do to our own soldiers, including a number of men I know well, who have told me about the experience. They said it was very scary and they hated it but that they suffered no real harm.

World of difference between something that does no lasting harm that we do to our own to toughen them up (waterboarding), and slowly sawing off a journalists' head while he screams in horror (until he was no longer able to do anything but make inhuman croaking sounds).

Comparison FAIL.
 
.

As a follow on to Goshin's point (I think) Seems like this would be are great time in the discussion to clarify exactly what everyone is useing for their definition of torture.

On the Low end we have:
Sleep deprivation
Loud music
Pictures of nekkid girls
bugs
limited diet, etc


On the High end the really nasty crap:
Beatings
disfigurement
Death marches, etc.

In the middle somewhere we have waterboarding

So where exactly do the low tolerance types draw the line?? Is there anything that you would find morally acceptable in making a suspected terrorist prisoner uncomfortable in the effort to extract information from them.....??



.
 
.

As a follow on to Goshin's point (I think) Seems like this would be are great time in the discussion to clarify exactly what everyone is useing for their definition of torture.

On the Low end we have:
Sleep deprivation
Loud music
Pictures of nekkid girls
bugs
limited diet, etc


On the High end the really nasty crap:
Beatings
disfigurement
Death marches, etc.

In the middle somewhere we have waterboarding

So where exactly do the low tolerance types draw the line?? Is there anything that you would find morally acceptable in making a suspected terrorist prisoner uncomfortable in the effort to extract information from them.....??



.


Pics of nekkid girls is torture?

Well bring on the torture then! :mrgreen:


(then again, if they're make-a-train-take-a-dirt-road-UGLY, that might be different....) :lamo
 
I'll hear you out, Tucker. Give me a scenario were torture can be construed as morally right.

If someone were to rape and murder my child, me torturing him in retaliation would be the morally correct action. It would still be illegal (as it should be, for the same reasons I feel it should be illegal for the government to do it), but it would abso-friggin-lutely be morally correct for me to torture the bastard.

Illegal =/= immoral, moral =/= legal.
 
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Torturing someone to get info from them will only get you one thing, bad information. They'll say anything to make it stop. Torturing is immoral, and ineffective, we shouldn't do it, and we have better ways to get good info from people.
 
Torturing someone to get info from them will only get you one thing, bad information. They'll say anything to make it stop. Torturing is immoral, and ineffective, we shouldn't do it, and we have better ways to get good info from people.

Think we may need to go after this one at a time.

The word is sort of a nebulous term. What is your definition of torture.....??



.
 
Former President George W. Bush: We waterboarded Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and I'd 'do it again'

So doing the same acts as our enemy will not set us apart. The man even defended his action disgusting.

How disgusting would it be to give Bush a bit of his own medicine... A little waterboarding for the 8 YEARS OF FAILURE in the Oval Office and the Economic melt-down, leaving the USA IN DEBT with two WARS in the Middle East to win or lose.
This is surely a good enough reason to let him have a few drowning session on the waterboard... Considering all the innocent lives he has disrupted and destroyed ...
 
torturing someone to get info from them will only get you one thing, bad information. They'll say anything to make it stop. Torturing is immoral, and ineffective, we shouldn't do it, and we have better ways to get good info from people.

bravo, bravo !!! I do agree . This is an uncivilized act !!!
 
Think we may need to go after this one at a time.

The word is sort of a nebulous term. What is your definition of torture.....??


torture- the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure- From the Webster dictionary.

Waterboarding is torture, and torture is not an effective means to get information out of somebody. It's just a fact, they will say anything to make the pain go away.
 
I might have been more sympathetic about the whole waterboarding thing, if I hadn't seen that video of Pearl slowly, agonizingly being tortured to death by having his head sawn off with a serrated knife, screaming in pain and terror, FIRST before I ever heard about waterboarding.

The Taliban are terrorists, so it's not shocking what they do, especially since 9/11. The American military are not, and should not be. While I admit that sawing off someone's head is much more barbaric than waterboarding, they are both disgusting acts of cruelty. Just because something is not as cruel as the other doesn't make it okay.

I might have been more sympathetic about it if it wasn't something we do to our own soldiers, including a number of men I know well, who have told me about the experience. They said it was very scary and they hated it but that they suffered no real harm.

Never heard of this. Got a link?

World of difference between something that does no lasting harm that we do to our own to toughen them up (waterboarding), and slowly sawing off a journalists' head while he screams in horror (until he was no longer able to do anything but make inhuman croaking sounds).

I love how you downplay waterboarding like it's a stroll in the park. :doh

Now let me ask you this. Say the Taliban captured a bunch of US military personnel, and waterboarded them all to "extract information," how would you feel about it?

PS. How in the hell can you watch that video???
 
If someone were to rape and murder my child, me torturing him in retaliation would be the morally correct action. It would still be illegal (as it should be, for the same reasons I feel it should be illegal for the government to do it), but it would abso-friggin-lutely be morally correct for me to torture the bastard.

Illegal =/= immoral, moral =/= legal.


Thanks.

I will admit that I would have the same feelings, though I don't think I'd have it in me to go through with it.
 
torture- the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure- From the Webster dictionary.

Waterboarding is torture, and torture is not an effective means to get information out of somebody. It's just a fact, they will say anything to make the pain go away.

Thanks. Good answer. If we are going to discuss the issue of torture there has to be some common definition to work from. And I don't disagree with your definition. Burning, crushing, wounding would be on most people's list as genuine torture. Personally think waterboarding would qualify as a "maybe" for that broad description but it would certainly be a valid debate.

But at least as a starting point, we should be able to remove Guantanamo Bay from the torture accusations topic. Never heard burning, crushing, or wounding being viably claimed at that site. (more of the sleep, loud music, and Koran catagories...)


.
 
Is your objection to "torture" based on the argument that its not useful or that it's morally wrong? Or both?

Both. They are not mutually exclusive positions.


Again, it's not so much an actual scenario as it is a thought exercise used to help people examine the logic behind their support for or opposition to torture in some or all circumstances.

Isn’t better to use a realistic scenario to exercise thought? Further, as the “ticking time bomb”, has been used as “THEE excuse” for torture, (thank you ADK), it’s disingenuous. It reminds me of children going to the outer reaches of logic in order to wring something from their parents.

Sorry to repeat myself, but the lines are drawn before the question is asked. Those of us against torture are against it. We don’t want our government acting illegally for any reason. Period. And those who think it’s ok to torture under the ticking time bomb want to punish the person and the scenario makes little or no difference.

What baffles me is that if Conservatives are so afraid of government power, one would think they’d be afraid of a President who overrides the law to approves torture.


That's exactly what our interrogators did. They found the detainees weaknesses (whether it was female interrogators, insects, or embarrassment) and exploited it. I seem to remember a bit of an uproar when that information was released.

Comparing cookies, insects or embarrassment to the simulation of drowning, which is completely believable by the person experiencing it so it is not a simulation to them, is a false equivalency. Fear of death is everyone’s weakness and as an interrogation policy it’s lazy and worse, ineffective.


Gina,

As I said, a hypothetical involving nineteen AQ operatives hijacking four jetliners and flying them into the WTC and Pentagon would have been laughed at prior to 9/11. Such a hypothetical would've failed to meet your subjective criteria of "likelihood" but it happened nonetheless. Reality does not always conform to our subjective expectations of what is likely to occur.

In fact, I did read an article a while back wherein it was discovered that NORAD ran drills based on a hypothetical scenarios regarding the use of hijacked aircraft as a threat to national defense, 2 years before 9/11/01. So a 9/11 style attack was not outside the realm of consideration of at least NORAD, though not as specifically as you outline.

WASHINGTON — In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.

One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets performed a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons headed toward a target in the United States. In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon — but that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and Defense officials say.

USATODAY.com - NORAD had drills of jets as weapons

And the point of this particular hypothetical is to subject our moral presuppositions to scrutiny. If torture is morally justifiable under a certain circumstance, then it is morally justifiable under similar circumstances.

As I said before:

Given the nature of most responses from either side, a firm moral belief one way or another about torture, is the determining factor, not the scenario.

Yet you would approve of killing the enemy? Why do you arbitrarily distinguish between killing and torture? If a soldier can send a lead projectile through the enemy's head, then why it is morally reprehensible to subject that same enemy to simulated drowning?

You are using a false equivalency. Making justifiable war against a country or group responsible for killing Americans (and killing the aggressor in the process) is not the same as the treatment of detained captured soldiers or combatants. Those are two separate circumstances. Without discussing the details surrounding the start of the war in Iraq, we have no law against attacking those who attack us; congress and the president grant the authority.

In the other case, there are our own laws making torture illegal and those of international agreements the U.S. has signed with regard to the treatment of captured personnel, outlawing waterboarding specifically as torture. We do not torture and I’m not a pacifist.
And what about collateral damage? President Obama has ordered predator drone strikes on high level AQ operatives, causing the deaths of innocent non-combatants in the process. Do you also condemn these acts?

What does collateral damage have to do with torture? You really are bringing the kitchen sink to bear in this discussion. I’m not going to wander astray with a further discussion of that topic other than to say, yes, I abhor the “collateral” deaths of non-combatant in the pursuit of AQ and you are again using a false equivalency. Those deaths are unintentional. Torture is a completely intentional act. Now, if you go down that road again, you go alone.


No one has made an appeal to law thus far (correct me if I'm wrong). It seems their primary concern has been the moral valuation being made in regards to torture, which is why I chose to address that valuation.

I’m addressing the law and I do so because it is morally wrong to break it. We are a nation of laws. I don’t want my President or government breaking the law on their own, for any reason. As I stated to NYC, for people who mistrust government as much as libertarians and conservatives do, why would they approve of the government breaking the law at will? I’m flummoxed that it is acceptable.
 
What a ridiculous rant, Zyph. :doh

I have never equated waterboarding vs beheading. One is torture, the other is outright murder. I hold the US to a higher standard than the Taliban, and would never imagine beheading to become US policy in a time of war. Then again, I never expected torture to be acceptable either. But that has happened, and the pedistal that the US sat high on when it came to world view on humane treatment came falling down. C'mon... you're better than that.

You've equated waterboarding to everything the terrorists due in regards to "torture".

You've essentially equated waterboarding to shoving sharp objects up someones fingernails.

You've equated it to flaying skin from peoples bodies.

You've equated it to castration.

You've equated it to rape.

You've equated it to breaking bones, potentially to the point of paralysis.

And on and on.

And where exactly does it stop?

Is sleep deprivation exactly the same as cutting off body parts?

Is tearing up a holy book exactly the same level of wrongness as killing someones family member in front of them while they're bound?

Is screaming at someone and threatening to beat them exactly the same level of wrongness as physically beating them to the point that they'd be dead if not getting some basic medical attention?

No, sorry, there is no other generalized "bad thing" in this world that I believe the worst actions that fall under its umbrella is exactly the same as far as how "bad" it is as every other action under that umbrella no matter how much more benign or lighter they are. I don't hold that standard to lying. Our law doesn't hold that standard to breaking of the law. Yet magically its supposed to apply to torture.

Yes, I absolutely have an issue with these milder forms of torture being used as part of common every, generalized, SOP for our military and intelligence forces. No, I have absolutely no issue with using these kind of "torture" techniques on a small number of individuals with a high probability of having actionable or valuable knowledge and have a clearly evident connection with the entities we are at war with if it is kept specifically as an exception rather than a rule defined solely to this encounter.

I do not hold my government to some kind of higher standard than the common sense I hold myself too.

If someone attacks me with fists I'm probably going to just use my fists.
If that person decides to pull out a knife I'm not going to keep using my fists to keep the "moral high ground" of not attacking someone with a deadly weapon if I have a knife near by.
If that person decides to pull out a gun on me I'm not gong to keep using my fists to keep the "moral high ground" of not attacking someone with a deadly weapon if I have a knife near by.

Likewise

I am not in favor of my government attacking unless its been attacked/has clear and decisive reason to believe they're about to be attacked (the government equivalent of getting the first punch on a guy whose walking toward you angrily with his fist ready to punch)
I am fine with my government entering into conventional warfare if its been attacked.
I am actually fine with my government entering into NON-conventional warfare if its been attacked unconventionally (I would have zero issue with the government if it had authorized the assassination of key Taliban figures after a terrorist attack, or if it authorized assassination against a country who utilized one against us).
I am fine with us using nuclear weapons if another country used it against use we have clear an decisive reason to believe they're about to use it and that is our best or only option.
And I am fine with using more strenuous methods of interrogation or "Torture" if the other side of the conflicts begins to do it to our side.

I do think its possible to do most of those things and still adhere to the idea of staing on the higher ground than those on the other side. While the other sides conventional warfare may not care about hitting citizens (like indiscriminate rocket fire), I agree with the notion of attempting to keep civilian causalities as low as possible. While the other side may use unconventional warfare to target civilians (like terrorism), I think ours should be far more pinpointed and targeted towards the problem rather than citizens when possible. While I would be open to the use of Nuke's in the above situation, I would want us looking at every other option for one that could be just as successful without using nuclear weapons to potentially avoid such devastation. And in the last I would not want us going to the most brutal, violent, and physically permanently damaging types or it being indiscriminately done to one and all simply for the primary reason being for punishment or a random chance to get info.

However I think the entire notion of "Rules of War" only works when both sides are playing by the rules. When one side routinely and continually disregards and breaks those rules while you try and maintain them then you are essentially fighting with one arm behind your back or more. Now can you win that way? Sure, you can. But likely at far more expense than otherwise. And frankly I find it amazingly hypocritical and frankly a big insulting to watch people bitch about how long the war goes on, how horrible the troop deaths are, how expensive it is, and then get up in arms at every single tiny little thing that happens that's somewhat questionable and makes it out to be the greatest atrocity ever known to man when there are likely 100 acts that are worse for every 1 of those that come up, if not more.

In any fight...from on the school yard all the way up to a world war..."rules" and "Honor" only are useful and worth while if both sides are following it when the defense of another or your life is at stake.
 
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