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Do you think water boarding is torture?[W:453]

Do you think water boarding is torture?

  • Total voters
    128
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Paratrooper said:
I don't see that it matters... Do you think Al Qaeda, Taliban, Fedayeen were like "maybe we shouldn't torture them...it just seems wrong"
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You avoided the question, do you think because a small groups of terrorists behave immorally, it should be legal for all?

I certainly don't think torture is something that should be common practice but I also think it is naive to say we should never use it under any circumstances. This is why countries have "Black Ops" they get to operate in that grey area and do things that might not sit well with Joe the Monday Morning Quarterback.
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So as long as you don't know about it you are find with torture being carried out in your name?
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Look you guys keep asking " so you wouldn't have a problem if they tortured" They do not care one bit whether I like what they are doing or not.

Ofcourse I wouldn't want to be tortured if I were captured, then again I wouldn't want to be shot at either.

War is ugly. It seems retarded to me that you can blow a man's head off with a sniper rifle, but slapping him across the face is "over the line".

If someone kindapped your kid and dropped them off in a hole in the middle of no where and said they had 8 hours to live until something/someone killed them and then you found that person, I think it is simply lying for someone to say they wouldn't be willing to throw a few punches to get this guy to give up the location, that or their family member doesn't mean that much to them.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Paratrooper said:
Look you guys keep asking " so you wouldn't have a problem if they tortured" They do not care one bit whether I like what they are doing or not.

Ofcourse I wouldn't want to be tortured if I were captured, then again I wouldn't want to be shot at either.

War is ugly. It seems retarded to me that you can blow a man's head off with a sniper rifle, but slapping him across the face is "over the line".

If someone kindapped your kid and dropped them off in a hole in the middle of no where and said they had 8 hours to live until something/someone killed them and then you found that person, I think it is simply lying for someone to say they wouldn't be willing to throw a few punches to get this guy to give up the location, that or their family member doesn't mean that much to them.
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Some countries do follow the rules of war. Us having abandoned them without any justifiable reason makes it more likely our people will be tortured in the future. We've changed the rules and no one else we care that our enemy wasn't traditional or rule followers. That's just one more thing to add to the immorality and ineffectiveness of torture.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

What countries that are currently at war or have been in the last decade do you suppose "follow the rules of war"?

You say weve changed. I say we have not, there have just been more leaks. Almost(if not every) nations covert ops units do these kind of things, or at least are willing to.
 
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Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Paratrooper said:
What countries that are currently at war or have been in the last decade do you suppose "follow the rules of war"?
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Future wars. Nothing in my statement was about current wars. And history is longer than a decade.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Well....its easy to follow the rules of war when your not at war.....
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Paratrooper said:
Well....its easy to follow the rules of war when your not at war.....
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Many followed them with us when they were at war.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Boo Radley said:
Many followed them with us when they were at war.
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Really? How do you know this? The problem is this is not something people advertise. Sure some countries don't care what people think, but you can bet countries with their own versions of CIA, Mossad, MI6 etc are doing this.
 
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Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Catawba said:
Are you proposing to have US and International law changes that would approve torture in certain circumstances as a legal means of intelligence gathering?

And what would be those certain circumstances that you would want torture used by other governments around the world?
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Do you honestly believe that our enemies pay any attention to the Geneva Convention and follow it? My God man they cut off our soldiers heads....Now that is torture.........
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Catawba said:
You would be for other countries legally being allowed to torture our soldiers or citizens under certain circumstances?
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To add to my first post, I also think torture is only appropriate when the lives in danger are noncombatants, i.e. civilians.

Of course I would not favor other countries torturing our soldiers/citizens under any circumstances. But let's face it any country on that list would torture anyone if a hundred thousand lives depended on getting information, and some countries would torture our citizens just for fun regardless of what treaties we are apart of.
 
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Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Krhazy said:
To add to my first post, I also think torture is only appropriate when the lives in danger are noncombatants, i.e. civilians.

Of course I would not favor other countries torturing our soldiers/citizens under any circumstances. But let's face it any country on that list would torture anyone if a hundred thousand lives depended on getting information, and some countries would torture our citizens just for fun regardless of what treaties we are apart of.
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It's kind of a senario that never really happens oout side of hollywood. The have exactly the right person with the right information at the right time?
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Boo Radley said:
It's kind of a senario that never really happens oout side of hollywood. The have exactly the right person with the right information at the right time?
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Rarity is not an excuse. What's the harm in admitting that in very rare circumstances, torture is acceptable? I'd rather have a law that is never used than tens of thousands of people die because of an overbroad law.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Krhazy said:
Rarity is not an excuse. What's the harm in admitting that in very rare circumstances, torture is acceptable? I'd rather have a law that is never used than tens of thousands of people die because of an overbroad law.
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Not just rare. Not likely at all, ever.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Yet another situation where maybe it happens and you don't know about it. There is a reason we have security clearances for people in certain positions. There are certain threats that if the general public found out would cause them to panic (sometimes that is the goal of the offender in the first place) where it would be detrimental to tell people about it, or maybe better to just deal with the situation before it actually plays out.

I guess some people think Counter Terrorism units just sit around and play video games all day.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Paratrooper said:
Yet another situation where maybe it happens and you don't know about it. There is a reason we have security clearances for people in certain positions. There are certain threats that if the general public found out would cause them to panic (sometimes that is the goal of the offender in the first place) where it would be detrimental to tell people about it, or maybe better to just deal with the situation before it actually plays out.

I guess some people think Counter Terrorism units just sit around and play video games all day.
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If it happened, we'd have evidence. I don't buy that the only evidence we can get is where it went wrong. Government use this tactic so they are not questioned. It doesn't wash.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Krhazy said:
Oh, so you can see into the future, can you?
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It's called foresight and reasoning. The elements that ahve to come together are too great. Not only are there those I mentioned, but once you capture that person, others respond differently. And the person you have no longer knows all. And there is likely a time element, so he lies. You run on misinformation, and accomplish what? it's just a fanasty that these senarios could really exist.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Boo Radley said:
It's called foresight and reasoning. The elements that ahve to come together are too great. Not only are there those I mentioned, but once you capture that person, others respond differently. And the person you have no longer knows all. And there is likely a time element, so he lies. You run on misinformation, and accomplish what? it's just a fanasty that these senarios could really exist.
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There is never a 0% chance of anything. Literally nothing.

And in any event the chances are far more possible than you are making it sound. It is not that far-fetched to imagine a situation where a terrorist is caught after having planted a WMD somewhere, and officials have limited time to discover where.
 
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Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Justifying torture just because other people torture is just plain stupid. Or at least one would have to be stupid to believe that that is a good enough excuse for torturing people. And seriously how many times are you going to tout the mantra that if many lives depend on the information excuse? How many times does just one person know the answer that we seek? What are all of those experts being paid for if all we do is ask the enemy for the info? Hell its just more Hollywood reasoning by low intelligence parrots based solely on emotions rather than a rational professional mindset.

Personally I think that the people that support torture in "extreme" situations are arm chair experts that watched one too many Hollywood fake war movies.


Here are some real soldiers talking about torture. Veterans of WW2 imo have a much better understanding than many of the kids (today going to bat for torture) on what honor and serving your country actually means. Torture supporters should be ashamed of themselves. Did you not learn anything from your elders?
 
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Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

The answer seems an obvious yes.
The purpose is to cause an instinctive desperate fear of drowning death.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Paratrooper said:
Sure some countries don't care what people think, but you can bet countries with their own versions of CIA, Mossad, MI6 etc are doing this.
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Some criminals here don't care what people think, by your reasoning, we should do away with our laws here in the US since some criminals don't obey them.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Krhazy said:
There is never a 0% chance of anything. Literally nothing.

And in any event the chances are far more possible than you are making it sound. It is not that far-fetched to imagine a situation where a terrorist is caught after having planted a WMD somewhere, and officials have limited time to discover where.
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That's why I didn't say zero. But it's as close as you can get. It's unrealistic to think that it would happen.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

Yes. There's no point in denying it. Waterboarding is torture. Hawks deny it because accepting that it is torture means we admit to torturing POWs (captured terrorists are POWs, and detainees are presumed innocent under the law). They can't admit that we torture because our feeling on torture is a primal one where we know that causing pain for political gain is evil. Waterboarding should be illegal. POWs can't even be treated that way, can they? That's why the Bush administration instead called them "unlawful enemy combatants". Guess what? Combatants who break the law are still soldiers part of a political body, and treating them like filth is vile and disgusting.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

FreedomFromAll said:
Justifying torture just because other people torture is just plain stupid. Or at least one would have to be stupid to believe that that is a good enough excuse for torturing people. And seriously how many times are you going to tout the mantra that if many lives depend on the information excuse? How many times does just one person know the answer that we seek? What are all of those experts being paid for if all we do is ask the enemy for the info? Hell its just more Hollywood reasoning by low intelligence parrots based solely on emotions rather than a rational professional mindset.

Personally I think that the people that support torture in "extreme" situations are arm chair experts that watched one too many Hollywood fake war movies.
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torture in such an incident saved my life, and the lives of many of my friends. was it "right"? I don't know - we didn't do it, we just took advantage of the intel it produced. But I will say that I am glad my wife is no widow, and that my children have a father.
 
Re: Do you think water boarding is torture?

X Factor said:
And now we're back to this question, what does it's effectiveness have to do with anything? If you oppose waterboarding on moral grounds, presumably it could be the most effective thing in the world and you'd all still oppose it? Right?
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Hmmmm...If the information gleaned from waterboarding was reliable, I would then support it in certain well-delineated circumstances. No doubt about it.

Do you believe in torturing animals? No.

For medical research? Very VERY reluctantly, yes.

(Oh, and medical research would not be one of those well-delineated circumstances.)
 
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