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Amnesty International Wants Bush Prosecuted for Admitted Waterboarding

Commander Frank Wead, United States Navy:



SERE Training of our own military includes (included?) waterboarding. (The D.O.D. will not comment on whether or not it is still using waterboarding in SERE training.)

I see a few problems with indicting George Bush:

#1 -- Is waterboarding torture? Congress was asked to legislate that it indeed was and declined to do so. Our own military uses waterboarding as a training technique.
#2 -- Are terrorists protected by any treaties signed by the US outlawing torture? Or are they excluded?
#3 -- If waterboarding of terrorist suspects was indeed illegal, why did President Obama issue an Executive Order banning its use?

There's the number one problem with trying to prosecute anyone, for roughing up a captured terrorist. Per the Geneva Convention, terrorists are considered illegal combatants don't rate protection under the rules of war.
 
I agree with you that it won't happen. But let's not be dishonest. Torturing was not protecting this country. We have more evidence that what we got from torture hurt this country than we do that it helped. Breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter how misguided ones beliefs are.

What evidence do we have that torture hurt our country? And please don't include that it hurt our image. Don't care much about "image." Lives trump image.
 
I agree with you that it won't happen. But let's not be dishonest. Torturing was not protecting this country. We have more evidence that what we got from torture hurt this country than we do that it helped. Breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter how misguided ones beliefs are.

How so?........
 
How so?........

Al Libi. He was tortured and gave false testimony concerning Saddam working with Al Qaeda. That was used in the NIE (though doubted by the CIA) and was part of making the case for war, a needless war. It was misinformation. So far, nearly everything presented by the Bush administration as evidence of the effectiness of torture was either flase like with al Libi, something we already knew like with KSM, or silly like the fellow wanting to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blow torch.
 
What evidence do we have that torture hurt our country? And please don't include that it hurt our image. Don't care much about "image." Lives trump image.

See above. al Libi comes to mind.
 
Al Libi. He was tortured and gave false testimony concerning Saddam working with Al Qaeda. That was used in the NIE (though doubted by the CIA) and was part of making the case for war, a needless war. It was misinformation. So far, nearly everything presented by the Bush administration as evidence of the effectiness of torture was either flase like with al Libi, something we already knew like with KSM, or silly like the fellow wanting to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blow torch.

That's a failure of the interrogators, not the method of gathering the information.

Ultimately, you don't have the security clearance to know what was gained from terrorists that we leaned on. The examples you listed are just the instances that were reported in the lame-stream media, to undermine Bush.
 
That's a failure of the interrogators, not the method of gathering the information.

Ultimately, you don't have the security clearance to know what was gained from terrorists that we leaned on. The examples you listed are just the instances that were reported in the lame-stream media, to undermine Bush.

It's both. When you use a method that will make even the innocent tell you what you want to hear, the method is not an effective one. And one does not have to be present to assess the information provided. Lack of information or evidence you give you more pause than not knowing everything should give anyone else.
 
Al Libi. He was tortured and gave false testimony concerning Saddam working with Al Qaeda. That was used in the NIE (though doubted by the CIA) and was part of making the case for war, a needless war. It was misinformation. So far, nearly everything presented by the Bush administration as evidence of the effectiness of torture was either flase like with al Libi, something we already knew like with KSM, or silly like the fellow wanting to cut down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blow torch.

Al Libi was not waterboarded.

Al-Libi recanted his story in February 2004, when he was returned to the CIA’s custody, and explained, as Newsweek described it, that he told his debriefers that “he initially told his interrogators that he ‘knew nothing’ about ties between Baghdad and Osama bin Laden and he ‘had difficulty even coming up with a story’ about a relationship between the two.” The Newsweek report explained that “his answers displeased his interrogators — who then apparently subjected him to the mock burial. As al-Libi recounted, he was stuffed into a box less than 20 inches high. When the box was opened 17 hours later, al-Libi said he was given one final opportunity to ‘tell the truth.’ He was knocked to the floor and ‘punched for 15 minutes.’ It was only then that, al-Libi said, he made up the story about Iraqi weapons training.”
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi Has Died In A Libyan Prison | Andy Worthington
 
Many experts will tell you that torture is not a reliable source of gathering information. People will just lie to make the pain stop, even admitting to crimes they didn't commit. They may even be totally innocent or not actually have the information you want.

Waterboarding is torture. Period. We executed Japanese soldiers for waterboarding Americans, calling it torture and a war crime. Bush admitted to something America has deemed a war crime.
 
So now you are saying you would torture for your family but not for your country.

Say there was a terrorist with a nuke inside Australia and it was going to kill 5 million women and children and by the means of torture you can stop it from being detonated? You claiming you wouldnt torture then?

Funny how when its YOUR family you would but believe anyone else family isn't worth it. How typically liberal of you.



I'd sharpen me some bamboo sticks..... chainsaws, acid, you name it.... Even for Austrailia. :shrug:
 
Are you really saying the aggressors in an invasion are innocent people? And that you would have no qualms if a Taliban fighter tortured info out of a US soldier to save his family from a drone strike?




what do you mean, if?


Who is the taliban trying to save? No they would torture to maintain thier opressive barbaric regieme. Different circumstances.
 
Commander Frank Wead, United States Navy:



SERE Training of our own military includes (included?) waterboarding. (The D.O.D. will not comment on whether or not it is still using waterboarding in SERE training.)

I see a few problems with indicting George Bush:

#1 -- Is waterboarding torture? Congress was asked to legislate that it indeed was and declined to do so. Our own military uses waterboarding as a training technique.
#2 -- Are terrorists protected by any treaties signed by the US outlawing torture? Or are they excluded?
#3 -- If waterboarding of terrorist suspects was indeed illegal, why did President Obama issue an Executive Order banning its use?



It was done to me in 1990.
 
I don't even know how to form a good response to such blatant and hateful bigotry.

If you think that's "bigotry," I don't know why anyone should ever take you seriously. :roll:
 
You're rather violent aren't you? :lol:

No, I'm just telling it like it is. Obama was supposed to clean things up by closing Gitmo by January, 2010. Under Obama's convoluted logic, terrorists are innocent until proven guilty, unless you kill them first with a drone. And we don't know how many civilians the Hypocrite-in-Chief has killed:

In the 21 months since his inauguration, President Obama has ordered or approved 120 drone attacks on Pakistan. There were 22 such attacks in September 2010 alone, reportedly killing more than 100 people. In contrast, Obama's predecessor Bush ordered just 60 attacks in eight years.

Obama has made drones the centerpiece of his strategy in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida. These terrifying weapons circle over Afghanistan and Pakistan, changing the war and making it colder and more anonymous than before. They pose a constant threat, can be operated with the push of a button and, according to the CIA, are precise -- at least most of the time.

The drone war is being waged by the US Army, by the US Air Force and, most of all, by the CIA. It is taking place in a shadowy realm beyond the reach of war tribunals, public debate and the media. The only time it made headlines recently, and then only for a day, was when it resulted in the deaths of a number of German citizens. The men, who were killed in a drone attack on Oct. 4, were presumed terrorists who were passing through the town of Mir Ali in the Pakistani region of North Waziristan....

The CIA doesn't release any numbers -- not about its successes and certainly not about civilian casualties. It attacked Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, 16 times. In other words, either informants or the drones' cameras identified Mehsud's location 16 times and the drones fired 16 times. The first 15 tries failed. Then, in the last attempt, when the report was correct and Mehsud was in fact at his father-in-law's house, Mehsud and 10 friends and relatives were killed. According to sources in Islamabad, CIA drones killed some 700 civilians in 2009.

Obama's Shadowy Drone War: Taking Out the Terrorists by Remote Control - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
 
This whole situation is a perfect example of why international law is a joke. Bush could've personally raped and killed Iraqi children and then ate their still beating hearts, but the US is never going to prosecute a former President. Nor will we extradite him. And no other country has the combination of sufficient political will and military might to come and take him by force. With no international police force to enforce it, international law will always be selectively enforced and flouted by the most powerful nations whenever it becomes unduly inconvienent. We should embrace this fact and act in whatever manner best advances our interests.

And that doesn't mean I endorse a policy of torture. In certain extreme circumstances, yes, I could see it allowing it. But as a policy, I think it undermines our "we're the good guys" propoganda message while giving us at best faulty information.
 
Many experts will tell you that torture is not a reliable source of gathering information. People will just lie to make the pain stop, even admitting to crimes they didn't commit. They may even be totally innocent or not actually have the information you want.

Waterboarding is torture. Period. We executed Japanese soldiers for waterboarding Americans, calling it torture and a war crime. Bush admitted to something America has deemed a war crime.

We also condemend American soliders for waterboarding in VN, calling it torture.
 
Is Obama also part of this? I mean, he's currently in office, so he is linked to the ongoing waterboarding? Shouldn't Amnesty International also prosecute Obama with Bush? Just Saying.......

Also, GITMO isn't closed yet.....
 
He was tortured. That was the issue. That torture works. Waterboarding is just one form of torture. But it is torture.

#1 -- I don't call that torture.
#2 -- Even if it could be so defined, he was not protected by the Geneva Convention.
#3 -- Any information we obtain from enemy combatants is likely to be false -- even if we say, "pretty please."

October 5, 2006: Passage last month of military commissions legislation provided retroactive legal protection to those who carried out waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100402005.html
 
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I am shocked that liberals would want to see GB prosecuted ! Shocked I tell you !!! :roll:

Has MENSA called for the prosecution of Obama yet for being the dumbest President ever ? Whassup wit dat !

The presidents for some time now have done things which are at best questionable. I don't think it's unreasonable to start enforcing some standards here. Maybe it should be looked into, maybe a lot of what government is doing should be investigated. We've allowed our politicians to operate with impunity as of late and it's not a good thing. Sometimes you gotta crack some skulls to get the rest to stay in line.
 
#1 -- I don't call that torture.
#2 -- Even if it could be so defined, he was not protected by the Geneva Convention.
#3 -- Any information we obtain from enemy combatants is likely to be false -- even if we say, "pretty please."


Waterboarding Historically Controversial - washingtonpost.com

1, what you call it is meaningless. The US government has called it torture and so has the rest of the world. it is called the water torture.

2. It is protected as it is torture.

3. Some techinques simply work better. I posted some testimony on the other thread.

Also, legal protection is not equal to being morally right. Nor does it mean they did not break the law when they did it. it just means we're not going to prosecute them. And it would be unfair to do so without prosecuting those who allowed it, encouraged it, including the president of the US at the time.
 
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