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'Waterboarding is torture,' says Obama

Waterboarding IS torture.

But I would much better prefer they use the ol' bamboo chutes under the fingernails technique.
 
I would prefer cookies and a promise they'll let me go if I gave them the correct information
 
Maybe if we didnt have to invade because were all to obese to bike to work we wouldnt have to torture anyone.

Fatties.
 
Though I'm usually socially conservative, I can see waterboarding as torture. It makes the person feel like they're drowning. Would you say that feeling like you're drowning isn't tortuous/nightmarish?

I say it is torture.

HOWEVER, if this is the best option of torture in order to extract info from people who wish to kill as many of us as they can, then so be it. I'll support it to save lives but seriously people, don't say it isn't what it is: torture.

Again, there is no evidence it saves lives. Misinformation does not save lives.
 
Though I'm usually socially conservative, I can see waterboarding as torture.
Conservatism and Liberalism really don't speak to what is or is not a definition of torture.
 
I beg to differ. shoving bamboo slivers under someone's fingernails is torture. connecting a field generator to someone's genitals is torture. shoving a glass rod up someone's penis and hitting it with a hammer is torture. shoving boiling turkey eggs up someone's ass is torture. cutting someone with a razor and then pouring salt water or alcohol into the wounds is torture.

tying someone up and pouring water over their face, though uncomfortable (I know, been there done that), is NOT torture. just like putting a pair of panties over a guy's head is not torture.
*shrugs* Torture is the deliberate and systematic infliction of non-lethal physical or psychological pain on a person. Waterboarding qualifies. It's not really a debatable point.

I'm not concerned about how effective it is. Although if it were "merely uncomfortable" it's hard to see what the fuss over banning it as a tactic is all about. That's probably the major problem with conservative arguments on this point -- to support water-boarding, they must argue that it is so harmless that it is effectively useless. ????
 
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Waterboarding would be better described as simulated drowning.

You feel like you're drowning. Actually drowning.

It's ****ing torture, you ****ing monsters.
 
for general edification

1) Educing Information
Interrogation: Science and Art Foundations for the Future
Intelligence Science Board National Defense Intelligence College
Washington, DC December 2006

(in particular this section)
KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Review: Observations of an Interrogator – Lessons Learned and Avenues for Further Research

2) KUBARK [CIA] Counterintelligence Interrogation
July 1963

3) Anything about Hanns Scharff
Have you heard of the Nazi's best interrogator?
With "no limits" on the techniques at his disposal, how do you suppose he became such a renowned and effective interrogator?
.
Welcome to the MCITTA Official Web Site
Marine Corps Interrogator Translator Teams Association
Hanns Scharff — Master Interrogator
Hanns Scharff was primarily an American 8th and 9th Air Force Fighter pilot interrogator. [During WW II against Germany.] He was considered the best of the interrogators at Dulag Luft. He gained the reputation of magically getting all the answers he needed from the prisoners of war, often with the prisoners never realizing that their words, small talk or otherwise, were important pieces of the mosaic. It is said he always treated his prisoners with respect and dignity, and by using psychic not physical techniques, he was able to make them drop their guard and converse with him even though they were conditioned to remain silent.

Hanns Scharff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
He has been called the "Master Interrogator" of the Luftwaffe and possibly all of Nazi Germany...
He is highly praised for the success of his techniques, especially considering he never used physical means to obtain the required information. No evidence exists he even raised his voice in the presence of a prisoner of war (POW). Scharff’s interrogation techniques were so effective that he was often called upon to assist other German interrogators in their questioning of bomber pilots and aircrews, including those crews and fighter pilots from countries other than the United States. Additionally, Scharff was charged with questioning V.I.P.s (Very Important Prisoners) that funneled through the interrogation center, namely senior officers and world-famous fighter aces.

Hanns Scharff
 
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Waterboarding would be better described as simulated drowning.
You feel like you're drowning. Actually drowning.
It's ****ing torture, you ****ing monsters.
The people participating in this thread really aren't monsters. On the average, they're likely to be pretty decent folk irl
 
Conservatism and Liberalism really don't speak to what is or is not a definition of torture.
Humans have a tendency to pick teams and just roll with it because it's generally easier than taking the time to sort through the info necessary to make a decision about every issue, and just as (or even more) effective than doing all the work ourselves.
 
So, we should aspire to be more like them? I quite disagree, especially when what you advocate is less likley to get us reliable information.


but your fine with bombing them and sending the troops over to clean up the mess, just as long as the folks back home don't have to hear the gory details right?
 
More from the Marines



United States Marine Corps Inter

Effectiveness of Torture​

In addition to being illegal, these acts are frequently ineffective and counter-productive. The Romans threatened the early Christians with crucifixion, being burned at the stake, or being fed to wild animals in the Coliseum if they did not reject their new religion and embrace the many gods of Roman: Thousands chose death. Joan of Arc was tried before an ecclesiastical tribunal accused of witchcraft and heresy because she claimed to be guided by divine voices. She was told to admit that she heard no such voices or be burned at the stake: She was not dissuaded by death. William Wallace, of Braveheart popularity, was hanged, drawn and quartered because he refused to swear allegiance to King Edward I. The threat of certain and excruciating death was ineffective in dissuading these and their deaths had opposite effects: the slaughter of Christians contributed to the conversion of Rome; Joan of Arc is widely remembered today while few remember the name of the French king she served and who contributed to her demise; and, the death of William Wallace invigorated the Scots to successively eject the English from Scotland.​

This is not to say that coercive techniques always fail to influence or prompt some action. These techniques have caused men to do as their abusers wanted them to do or say, and, at times, caused the unintended death of the detainee; for example,​

1) "The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know."​
Napoleon Bonepart (5)​

2) Four days after the war started and two days after he was captured, an American lieutenant was heard broadcasting over Seoul radio on behalf of the Democratic People's Republic of [North] Korea. He was followed by others making similar statements and even confessions of using germ warfare weapons. It wasn't long before a journalist explained what was happening to them: "Americans are being brainwashed in Korea." Although these men were not "tortured"--as defined at the time by the U.S. Army: "the application of pain so extreme that it causes a man to faint or lose control of his will"--they were coerced and abused into saying what the Koreans/Chinese wanted them to say. (6)​

3) During the Vietnam War, Americans were, in the most profound sense of the word, tortured into making confessions of using bacteriological weapons against the North Vietnamese and other acts considered to be criminal by the world community: statements the Americans knew were false.​

4) According to the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, duress, coercion, and violence (threatened or performed) have led innocent Americans to confess to crimes they did not perpetrate. The Project reports that, "33 of the first 123 postconviction DNA exonerations involve false confessions or admissions." (7)​

5) On 27 May 2004, The New York Times reported that on 30 August 2003, LTC Alvin B. West, an artillery battalion commander, detained an Iraqi police officer named Yehiya Kadoori Hamoodi for interrogation because West believed the officer knew about a "plot to ambush him and his men." West "made a calculated decision to intimidate the Iraqi officer with a show of force . . . [even though he previously] had never conducted or witnessed an interrogation." The Interrogation of Hamoodi, that included hitting him and threatening his life, failed to produce the desired answers. West then fired his pistol next to his head. Hamoodi gave West the names of several men who were purportedly involved in an effort to kill him. One man was picked up and shortly thereafter released; none of the named men were determined to be involved in the so-called plot. Later, "Mr. Hamoodi said that he was not sure what he told the Americans, but that it was meaningless information induced by fear and pain."​

6) According to a 12 June 2004 Navy Times story, two Marines, during "motion hearings" held on 28 & 29 June 2004, faced charges in connection with the death of Nagem Sadoon Hatab, a 52-year-old Baath party member who was being held in a makeshift detention center outside Nasiriya. Allegedly, Hatab had been struck and kicked on 4 June 2003 and the following day was lethargic and had defecated on himself. On 6 June, he was found dead.​

As these examples show, the use of torture and/or abusive techniques frequently fails to elicit the desired response, at times produces a false response, and can result in the death of a potential source of information: A dead source is no source of information!
 
Humans have a tendency to pick teams and just roll with it because it's generally easier than taking the time to sort through the info necessary to make a decision about every issue, and just as (or even more) effective than doing all the work ourselves.

This statement is so wrong. Without a thread steal, do you even understand how your belief system works? I highly doubt it.
 
This statement is so wrong. Without a thread steal, do you even understand how your belief system works? I highly doubt it.

It doesnt seem any more right or wrong than any other belief system.
 
Can you give me something more concrete than psychological methods? Run through an example for me. I am ready to believe that other forms of interrogation that work but how effective are they as a percentage to something like water boarding? Water boarding has worked but I am sure that it is only reliable to a certain degree. Is there something else more reliable to a greater degree? I am all for a better way but I don't see anything working in most cases. A lot of these guys are just not going to talk.

United States Marine Corps Interrogator Translator Teams Association

For the curious, I invite you to read the basic reference for trained U.S. military intelligence interrogators, FM 2-22.3 (FM 34-52) HUMAN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTOR OPERATIONS. You would also find illuminating the book: The Interrogator: The Story of Hanns Joachim Scharff Master Interrogator of the Luftwaffe. This German interrogator purportedly gleaned information from every one of the American and British fighter pilots he interrogated without ever resorting to violence. This is not surprising when you consider: FM 2-22.3 states that direct questioning "works 90 to 95 percent of the time." Even Gen Aussaresses admits in his book, "most of the time I didn't need to resort to torture, but only talk to people." Trained interrogators, of course, know this--the operant words here are, "trained interrogators."​
 
This statement is so wrong.
You think that human tendency is to examine everything no matter how little value the outcome of the decision is to us?
Maybe you're right. But maybe you're not.

Rational Irrationality
Rational Ignorance

Without a thread steal, do you even understand how your belief system works? I highly doubt it.
I assume I have about as good of a grasp of " how [my] belief system works" as most people. Maybe a little less. IDK. I am not sure how to measure such a thing. If you know how to measure that, I'll do so if I can understand you directions.
 
No, humans pick a side because of what their parents/peers produced to them information wize.

Often yes, yet in developed, modern civil societies it has more to do with education and the nature of the ego within the experiences of the individual.
 
Often yes, yet in developed, modern civil societies it has more to do with education and the nature of the ego within the experiences of the individual.
But the rewards that we can actually influence are more likely to be the ones that come from our immediate social circles than from influencing the actual things in and of themselves. For things like the topics of this thread, the probability of anyone of us being able to effect a change in the conduct of interrogations by our various national security apparati is virtually nil. Further, the various costs of acquiring information are not nil. It's more "economical" to adopt an opinion which grants some reward that we can influence. And acquiring that reward can be had by adherence to or revolting against the norms of whatever social circle we have found ourselves in. This is not to say that all of our decisions are thus, but rather that we have this tendency. Political parties offer a way of branding issues that allow people to arrive at conclusions w/o having to pay the costs of acquiring information or having to think about things that hard. Again not saying that everyone does this all the time, but just that it is a human tendency.
Present company excluded of course.

ETA

www.gmu.edu/depts/economics/bcaplan/ratirnew.doc
.
Beliefs about politics and religion often have three puzzling properties: systematic bias, high certainty, and little informational basis. The theory of rational ignorance (Downs 1957) explains only the low level of information. The current paper presents a general model of “rational irrationality,” which explains all three stylized facts. According to the theory of rational irrationality, being irrational - in the sense of deviating from rational expectations - is a good like any other; the lower the private cost, the more agents buy. A peculiar feature of beliefs about politics, religion, etc. is that the private repercussions of error are virtually nonexistent, setting the private cost of irrationality at zero; it is therefore in these areas that irrational views are most apparent. The consumption of irrationality can be optimal, but it will usually not be when the private and the social cost of irrationality differ – for example, in elections.​
 
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But the rewards that we can actually influence are more likely to be the ones that come from our immediate social circles than from influencing the actual things in and of themselves. For things like the topics of this thread, the probability of anyone of us being able to effect a change in the conduct of interrogations by our various national security apparati is virtually nil. Further, the various costs of acquiring information are not nil. It's more "economical" to adopt an opinion which grants some reward that we can influence. And acquiring that reward can be had by adherence to or revolting against the norms of whatever social circle we have found ourselves in. This is not to say that all of our decisions are thus, but rather that we have this tendency. Political parties offer a way of branding issues that allow people to arrive at conclusions w/o having to pay the costs of acquiring information of having to think about things that hard. Again not saying that everyone does this all the time, but just that it is a human tendency.
Present company excluded of course.

I can't read this Im drunk.
 
but your fine with bombing them and sending the troops over to clean up the mess, just as long as the folks back home don't have to hear the gory details right?

Where have I said I was fine with that?
 
The people participating in this thread really aren't monsters. On the average, they're likely to be pretty decent folk irl

I whole heartly agree with you. But I will say this, it isn't usually monsters who do monstrous things. Generally good people too often accept an authority, follow the rules as they understand them, and end up doing things they would have never considered monstrous. Sadly.
 
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