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Amnesty International Wants Bush Prosecuted for Admitted Waterboarding

If President Bush did something illegal he had an obligation as a Senator to call for Impeachment charges and didn't.
Ah, the "it's only illegal if you get caught" defense. This from the side of the aisle that is so proud of being seen as big on law and order.

Laws for thee but not for me, I guess. :shrug:
 
No, you're skipping that there are many different ways to do the same thing. Waterboarding is just a euphemism for what has always been called the watert torture. No credible person is making the distinction you're trying to make.

I could close my eyes, put my fingers in my ears, and go la-la-la-la, but you seem to have cornered the market on that argument for now.
 
I could close my eyes, put my fingers in my ears, and go la-la-la-la, but you seem to have cornered the market on that argument for now.

Is this your way of ingnoring the rebuttal. I linked an overview for that says exactly what I'm saying. That is ahrdly putting my fingers in my ears. You simply have this wrong. Waterboarding is the water torture. All the differening methods do exactly the same thing.
 
Ah, the "it's only illegal if you get caught" defense. This from the side of the aisle that is so proud of being seen as big on law and order.

Laws for thee but not for me, I guess. :shrug:

What exactly do you want? You want Bush prosecuted? Want him thrown in jail? Tell us exactly what you want because what you seem to want is nothing more than a pipe dream as nothing is going to happen and those like you with BDS are going to continue to foam at the mouth.
 
What exactly do you want? You want Bush prosecuted? Want him thrown in jail? Tell us exactly what you want because what you seem to want is nothing more than a pipe dream as nothing is going to happen and those like you with BDS are going to continue to foam at the mouth.
What I want is a little consistency from people like you. Apparently it is, as you say, nothing more than a pipe dream.

BDS my pasty, white ass ...
 
Is this your way of ingnoring the rebuttal. I linked an overview for that says exactly what I'm saying. That is ahrdly putting my fingers in my ears. You simply have this wrong. Waterboarding isThi the water torture. All the differening methods do exactly the same thing.

At least be realistic. Waterboarding as done at Gitmo is not this:

Another description of Japanese "water torture":A type of funnel, usually formed from a towel, was placed over the victim's mouth and nose. At the same time, a 5-gallon can was filled with water and usually urine and kerosine. The concoction was poured into the funnel, and the victim had to either swallow all 5 gallons of this mixture or drown.

Having swallowed 5 gallons of this liquid, the victim's stomach would stretch and swell. The victim would then be bound, often with barbed wire, and the stomach would be struck, either with a rod of some sort or soldiers would even jump on it, depending on how the prisoner was bound. This pressure could easily cause the bloated stomach to burst. If not, the victim was then hanged by his ankles and the liquid would drain out through his mouth, risking drowning once again. The process could then be repeated.

You lose all credibility when you argue that it's the same thing.
 
This was a civilian. Do you not see the difference?

Why would a that make a difference? It is the act and not the who that is important. Most of those we waterbaorded were civilians as well, belonging to no army.
Just saying. . .
 
Why would a that make a difference? It is the act and not the who that is important. Most of those we waterbaorded were civilians as well, belonging to no army.
Just saying. . .

Why would that make a difference? Well, if you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.

If you believe the Gitmo detainees are innocent civilians, then that is what you should argue.
 
At least be realistic. Waterboarding as done at Gitmo is not this:



You lose all credibility when you argue that it's the same thing.

Again, read my links. All of those are different forms of the same torture. They are not different tortures. All of them are the water torture. It isn't the drinking of water, but the suffocation that is the torture.
 
Why would that make a difference? Well, if you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.

If you believe the Gitmo detainees are innocent civilians, then that is what you should argue.

Did I say anything about innocent? In neither case was innocent used. Just civilian, belong to no army. But we have tortured innocent people. That's a fact.
 
Again, read my links. All of those are different forms of the same torture. They are not different tortures. All of them are the water torture. It isn't the drinking of water, but the suffocation that is the torture.

No! There's a huge difference between a first- and third-degree burn. That's what we have here. For you to say that the Japanese method posted here is the very same thing as we did at Gitmo is reeeedickalus.
 
I've read the page that you linked and the description of waterboarding you posted sounds like what we are calling waterboarding. I'm fairly certain that doesn't cover the extent of "water torture" that he employed and according to his trial, he also beat POW's with a club and burned them with cigarettes.

The civilian was strapped to a stretcher with his feet in the air and head towards the floor, and water was poured over his face, causing him to gasp for air until he agreed to talk. Asano is convicted and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

isn't this what we did?
 
Did I say anything about innocent? In neither case was innocent used. Just civilian, belong to no army. But we have tortured innocent people. That's a fact.

The Geneva Convention protects people in uniform and innocent civilians. It does not protect terrorists. If you believe the people held at Gitmo are innocent, not terrorists, then argue that point.

As to having tortured innocent people, of course, we have. We've killed 'em, too. Women and children and all the rest. Such are the spoils of war. I'll say it again, because one can't say it too much:

There is no country in the history of the world that has done more in wartime to protect the innocents. We're not perfect. But we're as close to that as any nation has ever gotten.
 
No! There's a huge difference between a first- and third-degree burn. That's what we have here. For you to say that the Japanese method posted here is the very same thing as we did at Gitmo is reeeedickalus.

There's a difference in whether I steal 50,000 or 5 million, but both are still theft. I would not argue that stealing fifty thousand isn't theft because it wasn't 5 million, and that is what you're doing. Both forms suffocate the prisoner. Both are forms of water torture. Both are illegal.
 
Is this your way of ingnoring the rebuttal. I linked an overview for that says exactly what I'm saying. That is ahrdly putting my fingers in my ears. You simply have this wrong. Waterboarding is the water torture. All the differening methods do exactly the same thing.

You didn't post a rebuttal. I gave you specific details about a torture method employed by Japanese, for which they were tried and convicted, that obviously contrasts with the method we are debating. You then said there was no contrast.

La-la-la-la....
 
The Geneva Convention protects people in uniform and innocent civilians. It does not protect terrorists. If you believe the people held at Gitmo are innocent, not terrorists, then argue that point.

As to having tortured innocent people, of course, we have. We've killed 'em, too. Women and children and all the rest. Such are the spoils of war. I'll say it again, because one can't say it too much:

There is no country in the history of the world that has done more in wartime to protect the innocents. We're not perfect. But we're as close to that as any nation has ever gotten.

Law applies to everyone. And to protect the innocent, you have to protect the guilty. As we've done, you can believe someone is guilty only to learn later that you've harmed an innocent person. Being cavalier about doing such harm to an innocent is exactly how others, including our present enemy, have justified their horrors. No matter how good we've been, we're less when we make excuses for doing evil.
 
You didn't post a rebuttal. I gave you specific details about a torture method employed by Japanese, for which they were tried and convicted, that obviously contrasts with the method we are debating. You then said there was no contrast.

La-la-la-la....

And I gave you specific definition that water torture included all forms, including the euphmism of waterboarding. And as has already been pointed out, even the form used today was including in two of the examples.
 
That's not true. Geneva Convention identiies combatants very specifically:

Suicide bombers don't qualify. People masquerading as civilians don't qualify. People in uniform qualify.

So would you argue that the solders who fought in our revolution weren't combatants? They wore plain clothes, and didn't identify themselves openly.

And to many of the others who quoted me, don't put words in my mouth. Don't say "liberals say XYZ" and then dismiss me. I'm talking about a specific transgression by a specific group of people. I'll form my own opinion on everything else. If you think you can prove me wrong, do it. But back it up.

Most of what I've heard in this thread is "screw them to save us", and weasel definitions to find loopholes permitting torture of people. I have yet to hear any of these torture proponents stand up and say "I am willing to torture people who MAY be guilty of a crime in order to extract information." News flash for you all. That's what happened. People who were not convicted of any crime in any court were being tortured. I try to avoid being all high and mighty about this, but do you idiots really not see that if it can happen to an accused terrorist with brown skin, it can happen to you, too? The only way to ensure that no innocent people are tortured is to torture no one.
 
So would you argue that the solders who fought in our revolution weren't combatants? They wore plain clothes, and didn't identify themselves openly.

And to many of the others who quoted me, don't put words in my mouth. Don't say "liberals say XYZ" and then dismiss me. I'm talking about a specific transgression by a specific group of people. I'll form my own opinion on everything else. If you think you can prove me wrong, do it. But back it up.

Most of what I've heard in this thread is "screw them to save us", and weasel definitions to find loopholes permitting torture of people. I have yet to hear any of these torture proponents stand up and say "I am willing to torture people who MAY be guilty of a crime in order to extract information." News flash for you all. That's what happened. People who were not convicted of any crime in any court were being tortured. I try to avoid being all high and mighty about this, but do you idiots really not see that if it can happen to an accused terrorist with brown skin, it can happen to you, too? The only way to ensure that no innocent people are tortured is to torture no one.

Newsflash. I read this thread differently. I read it that we have posters who say that waterboarding falls under the legal definition of torture, and we have posters who say it doesn't. That difference of opinion is never going to be resolved here. And it won't be resolved in court either, because President Bush will not be prosecuted.
 
Good find. We shouldn't have signed it without a clearer definition of what constitutes torture. Severe pain and suffering....does waterboarding fall under that category? Subjective definitions always suck. UNCAT's definition is:

That was Bill Clinton. He'd sign anything.
 
It was left vaague in order to try and deter people from doing the type of rationalizing some are doing with water boarding. Little did they know it is almost impossible to stop people from trying to excuse almost anything. :sigh:
 
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