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'Waterboarding is torture,' says Obama

I challenge anyone that believes water boarding is not torture to under go water boarding for 10 minutes with one question given to them before it starts, Now do you think it's not torture?
 
Karl said:
Indeed. If the prisoner will not willingly provide the false information you need, then you'll probably have to torture him to get it.
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What's your solution?
 
Higgins86 said:
not as effective though...
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Says you.
As I have already posted a number of professionals in the field hold a different opinion.

United States Marine Corps Interrogator Translator Teams Association
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!​
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for general edification
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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?
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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​





​
 
Karl said:
Indeed. If the prisoner will not willingly provide the false information you need, then you'll probably have to torture him to get it.
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apdst said:
What's your solution?
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We could skip the search for false information altogether. Just a thought.

And ftr, if Karl were unable to answer such a question it still wouldn't add any validity to your position. It would merely mean that Karl was unable to provide an answer. To assume otherwise is fall victim to the logical fallacy called argument from ignorance.
 
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barbarian_style said:
I challenge anyone that believes water boarding is not torture to under go water boarding for 10 minutes with one question given to them before it starts, Now do you think it's not torture?
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already did it...and for longer than 10 minutes. I still don't think it's torture
 
Higgins86 said:
so what are you fine with? How would you deal with them?
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Them? In a fire fight, you fight. People get shot. It happens. Once captured, follow rule of law. Bombing areas where civilians are is ineffective and likely creates more problems than it solves. understand the military is too large and clumsy to be the primary instrument in this type of effort. Smaller, more surgical nits should be used. No bombings of civilian areas, follow rule of law, and behave with the honor and moral clarity we profess.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
We could skip the search for false information altogether. Just a thought.
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How do you know the information is false, before you even know what the information is? :rofl

And ftr, if Karl were unable to answer such a question it still wouldn't add any validity to your position. It would merely mean that Karl was unable to provide an answer. To assume otherwise is fall victim to the logical fallacy called argument from ignorance.
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For an argument to have credibility, it needs to counter what my argument. "Let's don't do that", isn't argument, nor is, "I'm right, because you're not".

Obviously, we're going to vote for national leaders that share our points of view. If those leaders oppose a little bit of rough treatment of a prisoner, or even some mild torture, then it's their duty to the country to come with an alternative method of extracting information from captured enemy fighters.

It's a problem that I have with most Leftward thinking folks; they always know what we shouldn't be doing, but can never tell us what we should be doing, instead.
 
Boo Radley said:
As noted many times now, those protocals are more effective than torture.
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And, when those protocols don't work, then what? Throw our hands up and say, "well, we tried!"? Are you ok with American soldiers possibly dieing, because someone was too limp-wristed to rough up a prisoner? I'm not ok with it at all.
 
We certainly know we got false information from people we waterboarded. We can even varify specific examples of this. We cannot do the same with claims that we actually got good intel. Yet many are willing to believe without any actual evidence that toirture works. Funny that.

:coffeepap
 
Boo Radley said:
yes, I've seen the claims. What I notice is that they don't give any examples of where it worked, nothing we can verify. I can give you an example, a verifiable example of where it got us misinformation that we used to our detriment: al Libi.

If it was a sucessful as this claim you link suggests, why can not one example equal to mine be given? I also wonder why you don't ask them to prove they had success? Why debunk something that hasn't even been supported by actual evidence yet?

BTW, I don't use the word ever. To be ineffective it does not have to never lead to information. It's that all or nothing thinking that gets us into so much trouble. You have to study things for a period of time, compare it with other methods, and determine the most effective versus the least effective. The litature says torture is the least effective way.
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So I guess it is only used because the guards and interrogators get bored or are all cruel sadistic bastards. If there so many other effective, proven options waterboarding would be extremely rare. Your conclusions just don't add up. I completely agree that the fatal flaw in any interrogation technique is that you cannot be sure what you are being told is true. The information has to be verfied. Let's just say that waterboarding is no more and no less effective than other techniques at our disposal. Psycholigical techniques take a lot of time to be effective and in the end you have no more gaurantee that the information is true than you have with something like waterboarding. And if the information is true their is no gaurantee it is still valid. If you catch someone who has been killing your fellow soldiers, killing civilians, killing your fellow citizens and hell bent on killing you I think you would have a better perspective about interrogation and the need to get timely information. I do not condone other forms of torture. Yes, I consider waterboarding torture. But I can't rule it out as an option. Your one example that you keep bringing up about its ineffectiveness only proves what we already know; It is not always effective just like any other form of interrogation. There is evidence that it saves lives but you can choose not to believe it. Not going to bother citing more examples for you to rationalize away.
 
apdst said:
And, when those protocols don't work, then what? Throw our hands up and say, "well, we tried!"? Are you ok with American soldiers possibly dieing, because someone was too limp-wristed to rough up a prisoner? I'm not ok with it at all.
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Well, we've tortured with only getting misinformation. What then?

You simply don't understand two very clear concepts: 1) Becoming what we've dennounced for as long as we've been alive, breaking our own laws, is no way to win an argument that we have the better way. and 2) that doing something ineffective isn't going to save many lives. If you really care about the lives, do the things that are most effective.

Also, as noted before, it is really unlikely that you will ever have that ticking bomb hypothethical so many are so fond of. There is really next to no situation that will really come up that you would have to torture someone. So your entire point is based on a false premise.
 
apdst said:
How do you know the information is false, before you even know what the information is? :rofl
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That's the kind of information you were talking about. Check the thread you'll see it's true. Not my fault that you didn't notice that.
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observe
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Karl said:
Indeed. If the prisoner will not willingly provide the false information you need, then you'll probably have to torture him to get it.
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apdst said:
What's your solution?
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Simon W. Moon said:
We could skip the search for false information altogether. Just a thought.
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apdst said:
For an argument to have credibility, it needs to counter what my argument. "Let's don't do that", isn't argument, nor is, "I'm right, because you're not".
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That much is true.

apdst said:
...then it's their duty to the country to come with an alternative method of extracting information from captured enemy fighters.
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As has been pointed out, we already have such methods.
 
Boo Radley said:
Them? In a fire fight, you fight. People get shot. It happens. Once captured, follow rule of law. Bombing areas where civilians are is ineffective and likely creates more problems than it solves. understand the military is too large and clumsy to be the primary instrument in this type of effort. Smaller, more surgical nits should be used. No bombings of civilian areas, follow rule of law, and behave with the honor and moral clarity we profess.
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problem with that is the military have their hands tied by the suits back home, in Iraq we could do nothing without permission and if you stop bombing areas that means the ground units have to clear them out which would cause major casulties. As soon as the body bags start rolling of those planes people back home stop supporting the war.
 
jambalaya said:
So I guess it is only used because the guards and interrogators get bored or are all cruel sadistic bastards. If there so many other effective, proven options waterboarding would be extremely rare. Your conclusions just don't add up. I completely agree that the fatal flaw in any interrogation technique is that you cannot be sure what you are being told is true. The information has to be verfied. Let's just say that waterboarding is no more and no less effective than other techniques at our disposal. Psycholigical techniques take a lot of time to be effective and in the end you have no more gaurantee that the information is true than you have with something like waterboarding. And if the information is true their is no gaurantee it is still valid. If you catch someone who has been killing your fellow soldiers, killing civilians, killing your fellow citizens and hell bent on killing you I think you would have a better perspective about interrogation and the need to get timely information. I do not condone other forms of torture. Yes, I consider waterboarding torture. But I can't rule it out as an option. Your one example that you keep bringing up about its ineffectiveness only proves what we already know; It is not always effective just like any other form of interrogation. There is evidence that it saves lives but you can choose not to believe it. Not going to bother citing more examples for you to rationalize away.
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No, I would not say it is because they get bored. Largely they are following orders and have not been educated enough on the proper procedures. I note again it was the military and actual experts who led the charge to stop this.

And running around chasing misinformation is time consuming. remember, we actually acted on al Libi's misinformation. Can you not see how much that can hurt us?

There are two reasons not to torture:

1) It is ineffective and unrelaible. This means it is not likely to save any lives or really help us at all. And there is really no such thing as the ticking timebomb.

2) It is illegal and immoral. Conservatives used to speak of core values, of honor, but in this they seem to mean that core values are only core when we want them to be. Rule of law is only important if we using them to push around some young people at a OWS rally. And torute is cruel only when people we don't like do it. It's proper for us. I can't reconcile these contradictions and hypocracy. We need to have core values and respect rule of law, especially among people who represent our values and our laws.
 
Higgins86 said:
problem with that is the military have their hands tied by the suits back home, in Iraq we could do nothing without permission and if you stop bombing areas that means the ground units have to clear them out which would cause major casulties. As soon as the body bags start rolling of those planes people back home stop supporting the war.
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We have civilian leadership. So such has always been the case, and that is how it shoudl be.

However, you're missing one important point, it was the military that objected to torture, who make it public, who fought it being used. It was poor civilian leadership that tried to push it.

And we didn't need to have any units in iraq. We never needed to invade. But you are confusing a couple of things here. I'll explain more when I return.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
I can re-post these links a third time too if it'll help.
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and what you win the argument because you posted some links? Buddy this is the internet I could post a million links about why waterboarding is effective, I could post links about recent events about the fact
waterboarding helped us get bin Laden: This interrogation tactic was integral to extracting information years ago from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libi that helped us find and kill bin Laden
 
Boo Radley said:
We have civilian leadership. So such has always been the case, and that is how it shoudl be.

However, you're missing one important point, it was the military that objected to torture, who make it public, who fought it being used. It was poor civilian leadership that tried to push it.

And we didn't need to have any units in iraq. We never needed to invade. But you are confusing a couple of things here. I'll explain more when I return.
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Funny people I met in Basra thought we needed to invade and they seemed pretty happy about it, but of course you know better...
 
Higgins86 said:
and what you win the argument because you posted some links? Buddy this is the internet I could post a million links about why waterboarding is effective, I could post links about recent events about the fact
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I won't stop you. Thanks for explaining that this is the internet, buddy.

Higgins86 said:
waterboarding helped us get bin Laden: This interrogation tactic was integral to extracting information years ago from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libi that helped us find and kill bin Laden
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Even if this was true, it doesn't speak to the comparison between the various methods, nor does it serve to establish the overall effectiveness of waterboarding.

I chose links from professionals in the field of interrogation who made comparisons between torture and other methods of interrogation like the US military and the US intelligence agencies.
 
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