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Banned Techniques Yielded ‘High Value Information,’ Memo Says

And that has what to do with the fact that torture is immoral and should not be policy in the US, exactly?

Do you think that abortion is immoral?

I am always amused by the “moral” argument from Liberals who think it is fine to abort a human life.

There is nothing “immoral” in conducting interrogation tactics intended to gain information from desperate thugs intent on murdering great numbers of our people.

There is nothing “immoral” in attempting to SAVE lives by using such methods after thoughtful and careful deliberation as to what methods will not be brutal and considered REAL torture.

Just claiming it is torture to make partisan political points in a vacuum of the reality and events that led our Government to make the decision requires a state of willful denial I am not willing to wallow in.

Perhaps you may want to tie your little story in with something that makes an argument for your position rather than enumerating reasons you disagreed with Nixon getting us out of Vietnam.

Perhaps you should attempt the intellectual effort it would take to comprehend what it is I typed. I never made an argument disagreeing with Nixon getting us out of Vietnam. Re-read what was posted with a modicum of intellectual honesty and get back to me.

As a geneticist, i've never understood why people mistakenly assume that an embryo is a rational, autonomous human life, but that's an argument for another thread. Suffice to say i'm assuming that you recognize your own error in labelling waterboarding as a "humane form to extract critical information"? I can think of absolutely nothing humane about this practice, and neither can you.

You’re a geneticist yet list yourself as a “student?” It takes a fascinating leap of faith to find you credible.

I labeled our efforts as “humane” because we actually went out of our way to ensure that the people being subjected to these methods were not in serious physical harm; as opposed to our enemy who saw the heads of their victims off while they are screaming for mercy and being video taped.

As a self proclaimed “geneticist,” you should be aware that a fertilized egg in the womb of a mother actually constitutes a LIFE. Your desperate Liberal definition of what “life” is merely a desperate rationalization and attempt to avoid REALITY and the FACTS.

Again, it begs the question of why Liberals think nothing of the lack of morality it takes to destroy the life in the womb of a mother, but suddenly wax so eloquent about morality when it comes to interrogation methods used on despicable thugs intent on murdering large numbers of our citizens. Why do you think that is?

I'm assuming in your heated argument against all things Democrat that you recognize the numerous failures of the Republicans on many issues of their own, no? Prohibition of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, for example, as well as the Abu Ghraib prison torture fiasco, the causes and prelude to the Iraqi War, Hurricane Katrina, etc.

If you want to start your own thread listing Republican failures, I’d be happy to debate them there, but the last time I looked, Democrats are in charge and it is the Democrats who are turning this into a partisan political witch hunt.

Once more you illustrate a profound propensity for making statements lacking in facts or reality. Bush never prohibited funding for embryonic stem cell research; he prohibited Federal FUNDING of it on moral grounds. How trite watching you argue about the morality of torture but then take the moral arguments against embryonic stem cell research to it’s natural Liberal extreme.

Abu Ghraib was not a torture fiasco; it was an example of how we deal with aberrational behavior on the part of our military and subsequently punish them for illegal behavior; how profound that you see this as a failure. But then, that fits in with your narrow partisan political views and we would not want REALITY to get in the way of them right?

The prelude to the Iraq War was a failure of the Bush Administration? What an absurd assertion. The Iraq War was a bi-partisan Democrat and Republican decision which had the support of a vast majority of Americans.

The causes of the prelude to Katrina were natural; are you now going to desperately assert that the Bush Administration caused them; how typically naïve of you.

Those are topics for other threads, of course, but nowhere in your post did I see any moral justification for the topic in which I assume you disagree with me over, namely that torture is/is not acceptable policy.

The moral justification for the methods conducted and used by the Bush Administration lies in the FACT that in the aftermath of 9-11, the Government felt compelled to use certain techniques in order to extract critical information from desperate thugs intent on killing as many of our citizens as they can for the mere fact that they are Americans in order to protect American lives.

The trite hypocrisy being exposed here by Liberals like you is this desperate assertion about morality, something that Liberals are always quick to dismiss.

Carry on; I look forward to more of your desperate contortions to debate morality in Government. Nothing amazes me more when the very citizens the previous administration tried to protect want to now prosecute them for their efforts to protect them from desperate terrorists who think nothing of sawing their heads off while they scream for mercy as if there is a moral argument to protect such thuggery.

You cannot fabricate the level of demagoguery, hypocrisy and willful ignorance it takes to take such positions and make such arguments.
 
Here's two of them...but of course you need more PROOF

Two US Soldiers Found Tortured to Death in Iraq

THIS is what happens when morons watch 24 and trust idiots like Dick Cheney. REAL heroes die.

Here's two of them...but of course you need more PROOF

Two US Soldiers Found Tortured to Death in Iraq

THIS is what happens when morons watch 24 and trust idiots like Dick Cheney. REAL heroes die.

So in your desperate and torturous attempts to defend the rabid absurdity of your arguments; you believe that this is a case where our troops were despicably treated being a direct result of our efforts to extract information at Guantanamo?

This goes beyond willful suspension of disbelief; this borders on incredulity of your inability to separate your rabid partisan nonsense from reality dude.

Yes I can hear the terrorists now; “we will take these people and torture them as a direct result of the water boarding our brethren in Guantanamo have been subjected to teach the infidels a lesson. Had they not waterboarded our brethren, we would not have taken these people captive, tortured them and then viciously killed them.” :rofl

You are beyond a clown like caricature of tortured logic.
 
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Here's two of them...but of course you need more PROOF

Two US Soldiers Found Tortured to Death in Iraq

THIS is what happens when morons watch 24 and trust idiots like Dick Cheney. REAL heroes die.

And do you have any proof what so ever that somehow this is a result of "Dick Cheney" or American "torture" or anything of the sort?

ANY PROOF at all?

Or is this just asinine idiotic speculation on your part so you can get on your soap box and make a rant like the good little hyper partisan liberal that acts like if a kid **** in a pool its Bush's fault that you are? Not to mention, interesting that....they were torutred to death huh? How long were they gone.

Oh, I know, I bet they waterboarded them to death. Or maybe they put them in a box with a bug and told them it had a stinger. I bet THAT'S how they died!

Abu Ghraib happened in 2004, which was the first major news of any kind of any possible "torture" by the U.S. I'm sure the terrorists that kidnapped and killed Daniel Pearl in 2002 must've been psychic, seeing into the future and doing such a horrendous act to him because of the U.S.'s foul use of sleep deprivation.

Can our actions potentially affect our soldiers? Yes. HOWEVER, there is absolutely ZERO evidence here that this happened specifically due to our "torture" that I know of, and beyond that even when they CLAIM that is the reason HISTORY shows that they have no issues executing people and torturing them for any and all reasons and simply use whatever is the hot topic of the day to attempt to propogandize said deaths.
 
So in your desperate and torturous attempts to defend the rabid absurdity of your arguments; you believe that this is a case where our troops were despicably treated being a direct result of our efforts to extract information at Guantanamo?

This goes beyond willful suspension of disbelief; this borders on incredulity of your inability to separate your rabid partisan nonsense from reality dude.

Yes I can hear the terrorists now; “we will take these people and torture them as a direct result of the water boarding our brethren in Guantanamo have been subjected to teach the infidels a lesson. Had they not waterboarded our brethren, we would not have taken these people captive, tortured them and then viciously killed them.” :rofl

You are beyond a clown like caricature of tortured logic.

Prove to me these soldiers were not tortured and killed as a result of the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib during the previous year. Are you SURE there is no link? Is the risk of a direct link so impossible that you still approve of torture? Do you not acknowledge that troops captured in the field are at risk of torture if their government is using torture on detainees? And try to answer intelligently, if you are capable of it. Meanwhile, here is yet more evidence of retaliation, this time in response for the Abu Ghraib photos:

The discovery of these photos has further angered the Iraqi forces of resistance. And in retaliation, a group of Iraqi soldiers abducted, and beheaded, an American civilian who was independently working in Iraq.
Youth Radio

This is reality. Americans have been killed and tortured because of the misguided and ILLEGAL decision by the Bush White House to torture detainees.
 
Prove to me these soldiers were not tortured and killed as a result of the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib during the previous year.

Logical fallacy here, [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_proof]proving a negative[/ame]. The burden of proof is on YOU to prove that your claim is true when you state it as some kind of factual thing, not someone else to prove that its not. He doesn't need to prove that they were not killed and tortured as a result of our "torture" until you somehow attempt to prove that it was caused by that.

Torture and killing was pepetrated by these people PRIOR to anything about Abu Ghraib coming out. Did they magically have a crystal ball that saw into the future? Or is it more that this is what these people do and they will use whatever current topic is useful to them for their propoganda to do it. Be it Israel, be it "occupation", be it "torture".
 
And do you have any proof what so ever that somehow this is a result of "Dick Cheney" or American "torture" or anything of the sort?

ANY PROOF at all?

Or is this just asinine idiotic speculation on your part so you can get on your soap box and make a rant like the good little hyper partisan liberal that acts like if a kid **** in a pool its Bush's fault that you are? Not to mention, interesting that....they were torutred to death huh? How long were they gone.

Oh, I know, I bet they waterboarded them to death. Or maybe they put them in a box with a bug and told them it had a stinger. I bet THAT'S how they died!

Abu Ghraib happened in 2004, which was the first major news of any kind of any possible "torture" by the U.S. I'm sure the terrorists that kidnapped and killed Daniel Pearl in 2002 must've been psychic, seeing into the future and doing such a horrendous act to him because of the U.S.'s foul use of sleep deprivation.

Can our actions potentially affect our soldiers? Yes. HOWEVER, there is absolutely ZERO evidence here that this happened specifically due to our "torture" that I know of, and beyond that even when they CLAIM that is the reason HISTORY shows that they have no issues executing people and torturing them for any and all reasons and simply use whatever is the hot topic of the day to attempt to propogandize said deaths.

Outstanding and much more caustic response to Will than mine, but I also want to add another FACT to the debate about causation when it comes to torture;

It is historic FACT that regardless of our efforts to adhere to Geneva Conventions and humane treatment of enemies, it has never served to prevent other nations and entities lack of adherence and despicable actions regarding the treatment of our men and women in Uniform.

I reference Nazi treatment of prisoners, Japanese treatment, Chinese/North Korean treatment and North Vietnamese treatment as your first exhibits. There are thousands of other examples to take such specious arguments about morality and causation the Liberals are attempting to make here.

It never mattered to other nations how we treated their prisoners and the notion that it matters to terrorists requires the willing suspension of logic.
 
Do you think that abortion is immoral?

I am always amused by the “moral” argument from Liberals who think it is fine to abort a human life.

There is nothing “immoral” in conducting interrogation tactics intended to gain information from desperate thugs intent on murdering great numbers of our people.

There is nothing “immoral” in attempting to SAVE lives by using such methods after thoughtful and careful deliberation as to what methods will not be brutal and considered REAL torture.

Just claiming it is torture to make partisan political points in a vacuum of the reality and events that led our Government to make the decision requires a state of willful denial I am not willing to wallow in.

No, I do not think abortion is immoral. And while I do not understand the propensity of anti-abortionists like yourself to mistakenly assume that an embryo somehow constitutes a homunculus, I find it amusing that such a defense is extrapolated into a parley on torture being ethical on enemy combatants. You also mistakenly believe I am acting out of partisanship, when that is not the case at all. My belief that torture is wrong stems from the act of torture itself. Rest assured if the Democratic Party began systematically torturing enemy combatants and sought to adopt this as widespread policy, I would most certainly oppose them.

But addressing your argument that torture is somehow not immoral, that isn't correct. Certainly an argument can be made that a one-off incident of torture to save a life is morally excusable, but to adopt this as continuing policy is abhorrent. Again, if torture weren’t considered a moral evil, then we wouldn’t find people condemning it when their enemies engage in torture. Acts of torture are readily touted as proof that the enemy is barbaric, but some of these same people readily turn around and pretend that this justifies their using torture or other barbaric tactics against others. Ethically, there is no serious disagreement that torture as policy is a moral evil; I think that there are only hypocrites who search in vain for rationalizations as to why they should be allowed to use it against people they don’t like, which is what you're attempting to do.


Perhaps you should attempt the intellectual effort it would take to comprehend what it is I typed. I never made an argument disagreeing with Nixon getting us out of Vietnam. Re-read what was posted with a modicum of intellectual honesty and get back to me.

Oh, rest assured that I comprehend what you wrote just fine. On the assumption that your memory is rather selective, allow me to bring you up to speed. I quoted McCain, who made a wonderful little statement about torture being disgraceful, and if the roles were reversed, they'd have never done it to them because they were Americans, and Americans believe such things to be abominable. You then countered with this quote - "How quaint to post this quote when the end result of that war was allowing the North Vietnamese to not only get away with their war crimes and illegal torture and abuse of their prisoners, but allow them to break their treaty with us and our ally and re-invade an ally we promised to aid in that event and instead abandoned; which resulted in the subsequent deaths of untold millions."

Since you seem to be rather concerned with intellectual honesty, perhaps you should study your quote, then point out exactly where you tie that little statement of yours into your defense that torture is morally permissable, which is what I asked.


I labeled our efforts as “humane” because we actually went out of our way to ensure that the people being subjected to these methods were not in serious physical harm; as opposed to our enemy who saw the heads of their victims off while they are screaming for mercy and being video taped.

Perhaps you should brush up on your definition of "humane". Just so we're both on the same page from here on out:

hu⋅mane   /hyuˈmeɪn or, often, yu-/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [hyoo-meyn or, often, yoo-] Show IPA
–adjective 1. characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals, esp. for the suffering or distressed: humane treatment of horses.
2. of or pertaining to humanistic studies.

Now, i'd like you to point out how the torture of these enemy combatants is humane given the actual definition, not the one you're using. I can think of no way that this treatment is the least bit humane by definition, and neither can you.


Again, it begs the question of why Liberals think nothing of the lack of morality it takes to destroy the life in the womb of a mother, but suddenly wax so eloquent about morality when it comes to interrogation methods used on despicable thugs intent on murdering large numbers of our citizens. Why do you think that is?

Probably because we recognize subjective morality for what it is - subjective. You view abortion as destroying a human life, whereas those who oppose your view recognize that they are not. But we don't have to stop there; you probably view homosexual marriage as immoral, or since you are so opposed to abortion, fertility treatments as well. And what about cloning, or embryonic stem cell research? My guess is you tend to label these things as 'moral absolutes' along the lines of murder or rape (in other words, they are either morally correct or incorrect based on Biblical premise or something equally as nebulous), whereupon you surmise that these actions are morally wrong.



If you want to start your own thread listing Republican failures, I’d be happy to debate them there, but the last time I looked, Democrats are in charge and it is the Democrats who are turning this into a partisan political witch hunt.

Once more you illustrate a profound propensity for making statements lacking in facts or reality. Bush never prohibited funding for embryonic stem cell research; he prohibited Federal FUNDING of it on moral grounds. How trite watching you argue about the morality of torture but then take the moral arguments against embryonic stem cell research to it’s natural Liberal extreme.

I specifically said "Prohibition of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research" on page 14 of this thread. I'm assuming that you were hasty in your reply and missed this, so consider it corrected. In any case, your subjective belief in the immorality of stem cell research and abortion while attempting to rationalize torture policy as somehow acceptable (and indeed, endorsable) is a stretch. I'd be interested in hearing how exactly you reconcile that ethically.

Abu Ghraib was not a torture fiasco; it was an example of how we deal with aberrational behavior on the part of our military and subsequently punish them for illegal behavior; how profound that you see this as a failure. But then, that fits in with your narrow partisan political views and we would not want REALITY to get in the way of them right?

The prelude to the Iraq War was a failure of the Bush Administration? What an absurd assertion. The Iraq War was a bi-partisan Democrat and Republican decision which had the support of a vast majority of Americans.

The causes of the prelude to Katrina were natural; are you now going to desperately assert that the Bush Administration caused them; how typically naïve of you.

Typically naive of me? I don't recall ever having any discourse with you on this board (or any other for that matter) before this particular thread, but i'll humor you here. I'm sure that, given my propensity for naivety, you'll have no problem illustrating my points of contention and proving your belief that torture is not immoral, or any other mistake you've made thus far in your argument. I'd like to see reputable, philosophical links, too from an accredited educational institution. If your position is as solid as you claim it is, this should be no problem for you.

I look forward to reading your attempt.
 
You’re a geneticist yet list yourself as a “student?” It takes a fascinating leap of faith to find you credible.

I admit that while it doesn't have that certain je ne sais quas of 'rock star' or 'hot mama' or even 'Truth Detector', I hardly think it's fascinating to question one's credibility for keeping the term 'student' under one's online name. But to each his own.
 
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