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Do you think water boarding is torture?[W:453]

Do you think water boarding is torture?


  • Total voters
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Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

It is possible if he was in the military he got a taste of it. The common mistake is to think that taste was equal to having it actually done, it a less friendly situation.

Yes, I know. I was kidding him.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

See? You know it without acknowledging it. Breasts implies a body part. Likewise, does penis. However, when we start labeling them as "jugs and knockers" or cocks we start traveling into the pornographic realm where people begin to scowl. Does not Obama Care change the idea of Universal Health Care to many Americans? Does not political correctness change the atmosphere when it comes to describing people? All one had to do was change discipline and spanking to "abuse" and the entire idea was altered. You ever write up an award for an individual and pull out the thesaurus to give the award a greater meaning? And how different are the words "traitor" and "patriot?" Do I not have a duty to assassinate a one day leader who may seek to enslave Americans.....or is this treachery?

Don't pretend that descriptive words don't change the idea or the event. Anyone with a High School Diploma would agree.



Really? Some guy behind a desk doesn't decide what speeding is? Why is it dangerous to drive at 75 in some states and totally safe in others? Laws are simply made. Rules are simply made. It is the other way around. Prohibition? Thanks for the organized crime. People's idea of things often screw up what is actually good for people. Today we complain about legalized marijuana. At one time, the evils of drugs were clear to most. Laws are bull **** and the powers that be theme words around them to convince the ignorant and the idiots that they should represent them.

So - laws are bull****. . . and so it doesn't matter what it's called . . . but it does matter what we call it.

What's your point - I think you forgot it. Make up your mind which way you're going. We either define what is torture or we don't - we either label something or we don't - we either legally define what is or what isn't or we don't.

Indiana Jones Moment - searching for the holy grail . . . 'he chose - poorly'
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

If it is torture, it's more psychological than physical, and compared to, say, hooking someone up to a car battery with jumper cables, I'll vote no. Everything is relative and there is no question that these techniques yielded some valuable information.

"The argument on torture pits two schools of thought against each other. There are the Trinquierists who believe in the efficacy of torture. They advance their argument most strenuously through the "ticking time bomb hypothesis." You torture your opponent to get out of him the tactical information that allows you to diffuse a time bomb before it blows up in your face. Torture is a dark art that you use because it works.

The other side argues that this position is wrong. The strong when tortured confess to nothing, and the weak confess to everything. Torture produces an avalanche of disinformation. The Iraq war proves this handily. The war ranks among the most significant intelligence failures in American history. Everything the United States thought it knew about Iraq before the invasion was wrong. The supposed intelligence from "Curveball" in Germany and al-Libi in Egypt was nothing but red herrings and Al Qaeda disinformation. Torture is illegal. It is morally corrosive and strategically unwise. In the context of a seminar on counterinsurgency, one would also note that torture doesn't work".


Commentary: Counterinsurgency and torture | Article | The United States Army

Paul
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

By the definitions of torture some are putting forward, prisoners are tortured in Japanese jails daily. They are forced to kneel in the middle of their cells for hours on end, and psychological pressure combined with physical discomforts are used to push them to sign confessions.
Let's don't even mention Mexican prisons, and what goes on in jail in some middle eastern nations.

Instead lets focus on how evil the USA is for having been desperate enough to resort to mild, non-harmful torture to find out if terrorists were planning to murder thousands or tens of thousands more Americans in the first few years after 9/11. (/irony)

mild torture is a bit of an oxymoron. Certainly it's all relative and there are certainly much more severe tortures than waterboarding. But mild? Not according to anyone I've heard who's been waterboarded. Your body's reaction to "drowning" is pretty ****ing intense and extremely, for lack of a better word, uncomfortable. From what i understand most people can tolerate 10-15 seconds of the experience. I don't think anybody that downplays the severity of waterboarding or compares it to dunking your head in water has any idea what they're talking about.

As CC pointed out hte question shouldn't be how bad is waterboarding - the question should be when and what sort of circumstances allow torture to be acceptable?
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

It is the sane approach to world affairs as opposed to the insane approach. I'll go with the former, but you do as you wish. Its one of the reasons we elected Obama, and since Romney says he will return to the practice of torture, its one of the reasons we will reelect the president.

The freakin' cowboy approach is what got us into an almost decade long war with a country that was of no threat to us.

The "cowboy approach" is another copout to dimsiss global demands. When did the Soviets invade U.S. soil? When did the Germans? Once again, you mire yourself in your impractical ideas of the world.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

The "cowboy approach" is another copout to dimsiss global demands. When did the Soviets invade U.S. soil? When did the Germans? Once again, you mire yourself in your impractical ideas of the world.

We did not act well with the Soviets. If we believe in our system, we may well have won without the theatrics. And german declared war on us. Just saying.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

The "cowboy approach" is another copout to dimsiss global demands. When did the Soviets invade U.S. soil? When did the Germans? Once again, you mire yourself in your impractical ideas of the world.

No one has invaded us through most of our history, even when we spent a fraction of what we spend now. The Iraq war for US hegemony in Iraq cost us almost 5,000 troops and trillions of dollars. There is no reason to be spending ourselves into bankruptcy just to further the commercial interest of the 1%. So **** a bunch of cowboy diplomacy, and the horse it rode in on!
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

We condemn a lot of places for using torture and rightly so. But when we resort to doing the same thing, to any degree, we do lose ground.

And how to de measure this degree of lost ground? Because it seems to me that no matter what we do our allies and not so allied come begging no matter what. It's only your idea of things that get dented. In the end, we march on and they follow just fine despite their whining of imperfections.

A murder who kills one is in some measurment better than a murder who kills 12. But, neither holds the moral high ground. The second we began to debate whether waterboarding was torture, we slide off that ground.

Governemnts do as they need to do in order to protect citizens they are charged with. "Moral high ground" is a mattwer of classroom ethics that have little to do with global affairs. Influence comes from power. We didn't come to power through our "moral high ground." We came to power because of what we do for ourselves without conquering and oppressing the world.

But let's break down this "moral high ground." Nuclear bombs on civilian cities? Supporting dictators during the Cold War? How do you reconcile this "moral high ground" with our existing and competing in this immoral world? Liberals will cut out their own eyes before they acknowledge that this country has gotten away from Christian base and that we have encouraged more and more violence in our movies and video games since the 1980s. The entire world had made note of how Hollywood changed in the 1980s. We have gone from suit wearing business men who tipped their hats at passing women to thugs who carry guns in schools and wear profanity on their t-shirts. But three waterboarding cases dented our moral high ground?

If only France shunned America instead of begging for support over Libya. Then you would have an argument of the damage we sustained to our moral high ground over the word "waterboard."

"Morality" is a convenience and it is defined in todays world wuite immoraly. An international law that demands a respect for soveriegnty while the world watches a celebration of ethnic cleansing or genocide is how we define good morality these days. The moral high ground goes to those who write history.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Yes it's torture. No, the United States should never have gotten involved in using it.

Historically, torture is a very unreliable way to gain information. The person being tortured will say pretty much anything to end the torture, whether is accurate true information or what the tortured person perceives the torturer wants to hear.

Have we gotten useful information from waterboarding, sure. But how much useless bs did we also get and how much information did we not get because of it?

Not every one will be a Lance P. Sijan, but some will be.

The use of properly devolped chemical interrogation drugs and techniques would prove much more effective and would never bring in the question of morality.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

So - laws are bull****. . . and so it doesn't matter what it's called . . . but it does matter what we call it.

What's your point - I think you forgot it. Make up your mind which way you're going. We either define what is torture or we don't - we either label something or we don't - we either legally define what is or what isn't or we don't.

Indiana Jones Moment - searching for the holy grail . . . 'he chose - poorly'

My point is that we define things and events conveniently. When we don't like a law we simply put lawyers to work to change the law to fit what we want to do in the moment. The same is true for morality. Waterboarding is a word that describes an event. Adding "torture" to it delivers the perception of ripping off fingernails and therefore absolutely must be forbidden. A rifle is a rifle until one adds "sniper" or "assault" to it and then all of a sudden the weak minded absolutely must do something to protect us all.

Laws.....are.....bull....****. Laws are what kept your kind from voting. Laws are what kept blacks as slaves. Laws are what makes genocide inside a soveriegn nation legal enough to make the rest look away. Laws allow us to be immoral while preaching that we are moral for obeying laws.

Once again, in case you got confused along the way, laws and words merely add the credibility or legitimacy we want in the moment. This is why you can get a speeding ticket on Thursday for going 65, but on Friday get a ticket for going too slow on the same road because the speed limit changed over night. Laws are written, too often, to demand a certain perspective from the citizens....or sheep. Hell, even judges rely on the decisions made by others, when it comes to passing judgement. They don't rely on their own morality. They rely on presedence and the morality of the past. This is why our judicial system is lazy and horrible inept and corrupt. Ever wonder why laws are written so that you have to hre a lawyer to explain them? It's a slef licking ice cream cone that relies on people, who obey whatever perception a single word offers, to raise a fist in compliance.

"Waterboarding"......has a certain sting when we call it "Waterboarding Torture." BY the way, is that video you recently watched a "Romance" or "pornographic depravity?"
 
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Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Yes.

.......
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

No one has invaded us through most of our history, even .......


So why do we venture out? Could it be that global resources and trades demand more? Could it be that trades betwen Europe and America were so wrecked that physically geting nvolved simply had to happen? Could it be that oil matters around the globe? Could it be that people need to drink water? Could it be that pirates seek to disrupt our manufacturing flow?

You seem to always hint on what you know to be true, but you are so hell bent on beliveing in the Leftist fantasy that you prefer ignorance. Admitting it would be too hard a blow to what you have convinced yourself to believe in for so long.

There is no reason to be spending ourselves into bankruptcy just to further the commercial interest of the 1%. So **** a bunch of cowboy diplomacy, and the horse it rode in on!

Yet in the end, you really don't matter do you? The world marches on and Obama does as Bush did. Obama spent more than Bush in just 4 years. Obama upped the ante in Afghanistan. Obama upped the ante in Pakistan. Obama upped the ante with Iran. But what's the point? You are still in the fantasy aren't you? By the way, I am not in the 1%, yet I have two houses, two cars, a motorcycle, and little debt. Perhaps the 99% should spend less time whining about what's not really a problem for them.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

We did not act well with the Soviets. If we believe in our system, we may well have won without the theatrics. And german declared war on us. Just saying.

We acted exactly for what the game called for. We were actually very successful unless we want to conveniently apply a sense of "moral high ground" as we look back from the safety and security of 2012. We were better at it because we did not demand brutality or adherence to our system. As long as they kept Soviets out, we acomplished our mission.

Castro also declared war on us. What's that supposed to mean? We got physically involved with Europe because they proved to be unable to fix their own problems, which was causing us economical issues. Otherwise, instead of bank rolling the Allies since 1939 and conducting trades with Germany, we would have gone to war.

There's a place to debate morality and higher ground. It's the classroom. We don't need to worry about such things, because since we are of moral fiber in our society, we will always come back to who we are. This is why we can drop nuclear bombs and forbid anyone from ever doing it again. This is why we can send men off to murder on our behalf (legally according to laws) and then watch them come home, raise families, and contribute to our society. This is why we can deal with the dictators and twisted regimes and still offer freedom and liberty to our own people. It doesn;t make us hypocritical. It makes us players in the world we have been given. We were not happier isolated before World War II? The price of securing our shores and our economic growth is constant theological discussions over our sense of morality or "higher ground."
 
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Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Ask Eric Muller, once a believe that waterboarding was not torture. And to "silence critics of the practice once a for all" would go through on the practice.
Well he didnt silence critics... He came out and said it was torture, and now is a critic of the practice...

Mancow Waterboarded (VIDEO): Conservative Radio Host Say It's Torture
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

We acted exactly for what the game called for. We were actually very successful unless we want to conveniently apply a sense of "moral high ground" as we look back from the safety and security of 2012. We were better at it because we did not demand brutality or adherence to our system. As long as they kept Soviets out, we acomplished our mission.

Castro also declared war on us. What's that supposed to mean? We got physically involved with Europe because they proved to be unable to fix their own problems, which was causing us economical issues. Otherwise, instead of bank rolling the Allies since 1939 and conducting trades with Germany, we would have gone to war.

There's a place to debate morality and higher ground. It's the classroom. We don't need to worry about such things, because since we are of moral fiber in our society, we will always come back to who we are. This is why we can drop nuclear bombs and forbid anyone from ever doing it again. This is why we can send men off to murder on our behalf (legally according to laws) and then watch them come home, raise families, and contribute to our society. This is why we can deal with the dictators and twisted regimes and still offer freedom and liberty to our own people. It doesn;t make us hypocritical. It makes us players in the world we have been given. We were not happier isolated before World War II? The price of securing our shores and our economic growth is constant theological discussions over our sense of morality or "higher ground."

Were we? The red scare didn't have the look of success to me.

And no, if morality doesn't exist outside the classroom, than it has no meaning. History is full of people who did the moral thing. True, it hasn't always been us. True, we've been rather immoral a good number of times. But there is nothing that says we HAD to be. People like to talk about core values, but if you don't hold that value when times are tough, you don't hold that value. We can play without being immoral. We can be tough without being immoral. It is a false choice that we have to either hide or be immoral.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

BY the way, is that video you recently watched a "Romance" or "pornographic depravity?"

Knowing aunt spiker, it was probably porn. ;)
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Ask Eric Muller, once a believe that waterboarding was not torture. And to "silence critics of the practice once a for all" would go through on the practice.
Well he didnt silence critics... He came out and said it was torture, and now is a critic of the practice...

Mancow Waterboarded (VIDEO): Conservative Radio Host Say It's Torture

same can be said of hitchens. He would have loved to have been able to declare waterboarding as not torture. but it is and hitchens was far too honest to say otherwise.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

It could be construed as such, by a strict definition.

But "torture" can range from psychological tricks to things like pulling out fingernails and slow-roasting human beings over hot coals, or breaking them on the wheel as in the middle ages. As tortures go, water boarding is pretty mild. We do it to our own soldiers in SERE school.... they hate it but it does no lasting harm.

precisely. if we can do it to our own, then we can certainly do it to mass-murdering terrorists in order to save innocent lives.

In short, necessity and desperation are the bitch twin sisters of moral compromise.... and until your ass has been in a really tight spot, you don't know how far those two bitches may push you.

truth.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

precisely. if we can do it to our own, then we can certainly do it to mass-murdering terrorists in order to save innocent lives.



truth.

We don't do it to our own. We give a taste. The very people responsible for the program told congress exactly that. We do not do it to our own.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Yes, I think it is. I also think that when someone is tortured, the information they offer to stop the pain can hardly be regarded as reliable.

:( Sadly, this is not necessarily accurate. Torture continues to be used because it can be effective.


Whether or not one wishes to broaden ones' definition of torture to include enhanced interrogation, the fact remains that that program was incredibly effective, and saved countless American lives, as has been attested to by the heads of the CIA in both Democrat and Republican administrations.
 
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Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

:( Sadly, this is not necessarily accurate. Torture continues to be used because it can be effective.


Whether or not one wishes to broaden ones' definition of torture to include enhanced interrogation, the fact remains that that program was incredibly effective, and saved countless American lives, as has been attested to by the heads of the CIA in both Democrat and Republican administrations.

So the ends justify the means, then?

That isn't the issue or problem with torture as a means of extracting information.

I remember Bill O'reilly going on about 'well if it was YOUR family in danger wouldn't you want to torture the truth out of someone?' - Does make it RIGHT to do so no matter what the outcome is *for you and others*

Don't overlook the ISSUE in favor of unethical practices.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

:( Sadly, this is not necessarily accurate. Torture continues to be used because it can be effective.
Is torture legal?



Whether or not one wishes to broaden ones' definition of torture to include enhanced interrogation, the fact remains that that program was incredibly effective, and saved countless American lives, as has been attested to by the heads of the CIA in both Democrat and Republican administrations.

Really?
'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques' Ineffective, Senate Investigation Finds: Reuters - International Business Times
Waterboarding is Torture—and Ineffective, Military Witnesses Tell House Panel - News - ABA Journal
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

:( Sadly, this is not necessarily accurate. Torture continues to be used because it can be effective.


Whether or not one wishes to broaden ones' definition of torture to include enhanced interrogation, the fact remains that that program was incredibly effective, and saved countless American lives, as has been attested to by the heads of the CIA in both Democrat and Republican administrations.

You mean like when al Libi gave us that intel that we used to justify invading Iraq? That false information.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

So why do we venture out? Could it be that global resources and trades demand more? Could it be that trades betwen Europe and America were so wrecked that physically geting nvolved simply had to happen? Could it be that oil matters around the globe? Could it be that people need to drink water? Could it be that pirates seek to disrupt our manufacturing flow?

You seem to always hint on what you know to be true, but you are so hell bent on beliveing in the Leftist fantasy that you prefer ignorance. Admitting it would be too hard a blow to what you have convinced yourself to believe in for so long.



Yet in the end, you really don't matter do you? The world marches on and Obama does as Bush did. Obama spent more than Bush in just 4 years. Obama upped the ante in Afghanistan. Obama upped the ante in Pakistan. Obama upped the ante with Iran. But what's the point? You are still in the fantasy aren't you? By the way, I am not in the 1%, yet I have two houses, two cars, a motorcycle, and little debt. Perhaps the 99% should spend less time whining about what's not really a problem for them.



Venture out? Is that how you see our decade long wars on the Vietnamese and the Iraqis that were of absolutely no threat to us whatsoever? Just a lark eh?

Obama ended Bushes war in Iraq, even though Romney said it was too soon to end our war on Iraq. McCain said he was fine with our troops being there a hundred years. Obama is withdrawing the troops from the war in Afghanistan, even though Romney thinks it is too soon to withdraw our troops. Obama has proposed cutting military spending, while Romney has pledged to increase military spending. Obama prohibited torture vs Romney who has said he will bring it back.

That's some of the reasons we elected Obama and why we will reelect him this year.
 
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