Hey, they can do what we do, in fact PLEASE do exactly what we do, we don't need another beheading video on the net.

PRETTY PLEASE WITH SUGAR ON TOP, MR. TERRORIST, FOLLOW THE CIA RULE BOOK.

Hows that?

... Who views civilians as targets... In Iraq? Really? Who is this magic "enemy" of yours? Can you be more specific than "The Terrorists"?

The US has killed more Iraqi civilians than any other force, by the way A report in 2005 showed US forces the largest killer of civilians--the cause of 37.3% of Iraqi civilian casualties, up till then. I can't find any studies of the question since then, but I trust the numbers are roughly unchanged

Also, let's not forget there WAS no so-called "Al Qaida In Iraq" before we invaded. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi didn't align himself with Al Qaida until 2004, in response to the invasion. And even after that, their suicide attacks have largely targeted ISF, US, UN and Coalition forces, not civilians. (I'm not saying they haven't killed civilians too--just that they probably view that as collateral damage, not the primary target.)

So.... Who the hell are you talking about? Or are you just barfing out talking points?

I KNOW you're not trying to tie this thing to 9/11, right? Right?

Not a lot vexes me more than writing an elaborate post then having it ripped away by 'invalid thread specified'.

In short,
Ustwo, I have always held your opinion in decently high regard, though I have regularly and staunchly disagreed with you. Your two wrongs equal a right and mild torture is okay comments really cement my assumption that your logic engine and moral compass are in dire need of repair.

I spent a lot of the lost post apologizing for potentially breaking the rules there, but I'm skipping it the second time around. The school of thought that being from a different culture excludes you from equality of person bugs me. Are we to assume that everybody that was tortured beheaded somebody and put it on the internet, or is it possible that they are good people fighting for what they think is right. Maybe they have children they love. Maybe they care about their community. Maybe they are people.

If waterboarding and Slimshady is good enough for our people (the waterboarding is part of training), its good enough for terrorists.

I'm sorry, but I thought we were fighting a war here, this isn't a 'nice' thing, and I do not see waterboarding as a big deal as compared to the consequences of prolonged terror attacks. I think under the controlled and limited uses we use it under its perfectly acceptable.

So please, you can cry me a river about it, but I lose no sleep over someone treated as such. They are still able to walk around and talk about it after, unlike the 1000's of civilians they have blown up purposefully.

ratbadtid I know I waste my breath, (and dear god did you REALLY quote the world socialist web site as a reliable source?) but when we purposefully target civilians to kill them and bring terror on the population give me a call. I think the last time would have been Nagasaki.

Until you've been waterboarded, saying it's not torture is truly and completely meaningless in every sense of the word.

Notice, though, you didn't answer my questions. You got distracted by what was really a side point.

WHAT enemy are you talking about exactly?

Exactly, context is everything. Ask them how they'd feel about waterboarding Bush or Cheney.

"They" would like indictments, investigations, a trial, and then jail time. I suspect that rat, host, and all of the other "they"s on this board would agree.

There's a thread on the Straight Dope message board that is VERY enlightening on the subject. A participant there, one Scylla, is an intelligent, educated, and vocal conservative--basically that board's Ustwo. He'd been arguing for the use of advanced interrogation techniques earlier in other threads. Just to see what all the hoopla is about, and to settle for himself the question of whether it's torture, he waterboarded himself.

He physically did it himself--controlling the flow of water, his physical position. His plan had been to try it that way, then have his wife help with a second attempt.

He says:
The thread is VERY interesting reading, and I recommend at least the OP to every single person posting in this thread. I can't imagine you considering yourself well informed on the subject of waterboarding without reading at least that.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/...d.php?t=448717

I don't know what slimshady has to do with this but I'll just ignore that part. Waterboarding is part of what training. I know the Air Force Para rescue Jumpers and Combat Controllers go through something similar to this, as training for high wind, water bound rescue missions, but surely you wouldn't compare torture for the purpose of extorting predefined answers to voluntary training in the armed services. I don't know, maybe you would.

I don't think that waterboarding is indirectly proportional to the prolonging of terrorist attacks. Can you tell me how you derived this notion?

Also, please enlighten on these 'controlled and limited uses'. I didn't know we were privy to the information regarding how much it has been used, and I'm not sure where I can see the regulation covering its implementation. Unless that regulation says something like:

"Waterboarding is a term developed by the United States government and intended to be used non-interchangeably with normal word 'waterboarding' which means torture. Furthermore, when used by the federal government, from now on, the term shall be used to mean the following: Prisoners are asked to answer a string of questions. For each right answer, we notate and move on to the next question. For each wrong answer, we notate and move on to the next question. Furthermore, prisoners will still be required to provide there full name, service number, and identify their host nation as guided by the Geneva Conventions and Law of Armed Conflict."

That is about the only acceptable definition I can come up with.

It's an innocence by association fallacy. Listening to rap isn't that bad, and Ustwo would like us to think that listening to rap and being waterboarded are the same, thus being waterboarded isn't so bad. It's misrepresentation via the transitive property.

That reminds me. I saw you pointing out logic fallacies the other day, and it made me pleased. This is one of my favorite websites for keeping on my toes. I make these mistakes, too, sometimes, but I try and avoid them consciously.
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...hew/logic.html

It isn't? Why not?

If disrespecting a book such as putting the Koran in a toilet is considered torture to some, why can listening to rap not be considered torture to others?

Or is it again another case of, "I'm fine with it being a particular way that is agreeable to me, but when it's not, other people have to change."

I cannot figure out what you mean here Cyn, but I think I agree. :thumbsup:

the comparison between putting a koran in a toilet and listening to rap if you don't like it---as if these were of the same order---answers the question (falsely) in advance and blurs out everything of importance. deliberate violation of a norm held by (many) muslims who see the koran as in itself the word of god--but this not in the way an xtian would, but more literally so is problematic in that it is about degradation and frankly about some foul ethnocentric horseshit that you woulda thought went away abotu the time of the crusades, when legions of xtian lunkheads would do that sort of thing to "celebrate" the triumph of jesus and all that over the "heathens"

it is not AT ALL of the same order as making someone listen to a kind of music that they do not like.

and even the last statement can mean more than one thing: making someone "listen" to most anything at extreme volume for 48 hours, say, is also not making them listen to a kind of music they do not like. it's about sleep deprivation, which can be argued is a form of psychological torture.

what is the interest in deliberately trivializing the matter?
where is this coming from?

Let us see who used waterboarding in the past:

Algeria
The technique was also used during the Algerian War (1954-1962). The French journalist Henri Alleg, who was subjected to waterboarding by French paratroopers in Algeria in 1957, is one of only a few people to have described in writing the first-hand experience of being waterboarded. His book The Question, published in 1958 with a preface by Jean-Paul Sartre (and subsequently banned in France until the end of the Algerian War in 1962) discusses the experience of being strapped to a plank, having his head wrapped in cloth and positioned beneath a running tap:

The rag was soaked rapidly. Water flowed everywhere: in my mouth, in my nose, all over my face. But for a while I could still breathe in some small gulps of air. I tried, by contracting my throat, to take in as little water as possible and to resist suffocation by keeping air in my lungs for as long as I could. But I couldn't hold on for more than a few moments. I had the impression of drowning, and a terrible agony, that of death itself, took possession of me. In spite of myself, all the muscles of my body struggled uselessly to save me from suffocation. In spite of myself, the fingers of both my hands shook uncontrollably. "That's it! He's going to talk," said a voice.

The water stopped running and they took away the rag. I was able to breathe. In the gloom, I saw the lieutenants and the captain, who, with a cigarette between his lips, was hitting my stomach with his fist to make me throw out the water I had swallowed.

Alleg stated that he had not broken under his ordeal of being waterboarded. Alleg has stated that the incidence of "accidental" death of prisoners being subjected to waterboarding in Algeria was "very frequent."

Vietnam
Waterboarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in the Vietnam War. On January 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a controversial photograph of two U.S soldiers and one South Vietnamese soldier participating in the waterboarding of a North Vietnamese POW near Da Nang. The article described the practice as "fairly common." The photograph led to the soldier being court-martialled by a U.S. military court within one month of its publication, and he was discharged from the army. Another waterboarding photograph of the same scene is also exhibited in the War Remnants Museum at Ho Chi Minh City.
http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-...6100500898.jpg

Chile
Based on the testimonies from more than 35,000 victims, of the Pinochet regime, the Chilean Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture concluded that to provoke a near death experience, by waterboarding, is torture.

Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge at the Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, used waterboarding as a method of torture between 1975 and 1979. The practice was documented in a painting by former inmate Vann Nath, which is on display in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ard3-small.jpg

U.S. Military survival training
All special operations units in all branches of the U.S. military employ the use of waterboarding as part of survival school (SERE) training, to psychologically prepare soldiers for the eventuality of being captured by the enemy forces.

Jane Mayer wrote for The New Yorker:

According to the sere affiliate and two other sources familiar with the program, after September 11th several psychologists versed in sere techniques began advising interrogators at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. Some of these psychologists essentially “tried to reverse-engineer” the sere program, as the affiliate put it. “They took good knowledge and used it in a bad way,” another of the sources said. Interrogators and bsct members at Guantánamo adopted coercive techniques similar to those employed in the sere program.[43]

and continues to report:
many of the interrogation methods used in sere training seem to have been applied at Guantánamo.

Seems the US though it was wrong in the past and surprise, surprise they were fighting a war at some of those times, like Vietnam and what's that, it was illegal then, so being in a war and war not being a 'nice' thing seems to be even more of a flimsy argument than they were before.

let me put it in the same context that you're framing the Koran.

If a Fundamental Christian feels that Heavy Metal or Hip Hop is the work of the devil is that then not the same?

same move, different words.

where is this desire to trivialize torture coming from?
what does it get you?

I'm not trying to trivialize it. I'm trying to understand where it means something and under what context and conversation.

The origins of the trivalization started elsewhere. I'm regurtitating that it is a form of torture to some muslims and is supported in that context because it's a religious document.

well, personally, i am more of the school that desicrating the koran is just an ugly, stupid, barbaric thing to do in itself, and that the breaking down of someone's personality in order to extract information is a dubious undertaking. i think that the line it treads is problematic, veering necessarily close to psychological torture--and i'm glad that i am not in a position of trying to figure out what would be ok to do and what would not---but not as glad as i am that ustwo is not in a position to make that determination.

i don't think that treating an "enemy" as a human being is a big stretch.
i just don't.

waterboarding is not in any such grey area.
waterboarding is torture--look at silent jay's post above, and remember what it used to be called--even the terminology "waterboarding" suggests something more benign than what it really is.

Apples to oranges. The Qur'an in the toilet is subjective torture. Waterboarding is universal (for those that have experienced it).

So you're a Muslim and knows what it feels like to feel that kind of torture and pain?

So long as you use the same words to describe it and only chose to modify it with qualifiers, I'll still state that it falls into the realm of ""I'm fine with it being a particular way that is agreeable to me, but when it's not, other people have to change."

Well put. This all sounds to me like a new inquisition.

Go look up subjective.

Edit: just asked a friend who's a lot more Muslim than you are. You know what he said?
"nah it's just disrespectful, not torture"

I particularly enjoyed post #17.

So you concede that waterboarding is torture?

I particularly enjoyed post #1, especially considering he was someone who thought waterboarding was fine........until he tried it on himself, I wonder how many of the people who think it is fine on TFP would have the balls to try it, my guess is not a damn one, it might actually open their eyes to *shudder* something new, which seems scary to most of the people who feel it is ok.

I did. :thumbsup:

I always find it interesting to see who does and who does not vote on a given poll ...

so now it's pick a more muslim than you are tact. seriously, that's absurd. How about I keep looking until I produce one that feels it is? I'm sure I can find one... that's how absurd that is.

I've not chimed in on how I feel about torture, and at this point, I will state I'm fine with it. I'm fine with capital punishment. I'd love for public caning to be here in the US instead of just Singapore and Malaysia, maybe people would be better behaved.

There are things that are done in this life that are not pleasant. There are things that I am not able to or willing to do myself. This is when other people who can do or will do those things come into play for me. This can be as low as cleaning my house to collecting garbage to finding out information about insurgents and terrorists. Having had an uncle who was tortured, drained of precious blood to give to ailing Japanese, and then beheaded during WWII, I'm all for it being used as the tool that it is.

I'd like to minimize it as much as possible, and I'd like to target those that fit the profile. I'd like to believe that it is not used against innocents, but I am not naive to think that it has not happened in the past and will not happen in the future.

I'd vote if I could, I find it is torture and a legal thing to do, not a choice I have up there. And the second one, I don't care if Bush knew or didn't know.

I have had it done to me, along with being put in a 4 foot by 4 foot wooden box for days at a time. Big deal, if it gets one of them who would stick a c-4 charge up my mothers ass to squeel like a prom date, then its bath time Osama.

Yes, I thought so when you brought it up:
But I decided to indulge you.
To each their own, but realize that regardless of your personal feelings regarding torture, it's illegal under the Geneva Conventions, which the US signed in good faith. And as we all know any and all treaties signed by the US are US law.

How did I know will had tried it, it's something I'm contemplating trying, but I guess it takes a manly man like mike to have no ill effects of it, I mean a 4 by 4 foot box for days, sounds like Full Metal Jacket to me, was R. Lee Ermey your DI as well?

I did post #30.

I'll give it a shot tomorrow night, see how it is, I'll post my reaction to it as well, maybe even get a buddy to take some pics of the process.

Ill effects? LOL and get bounced out of recon school?

It was part of escape and evasion training, and training similar to sere.

Try living in a box, it puts queen size bed in a whole new perspective. :)

I dont recall wooden boxes in FMJ, but my DI made Ermey look like Mother Theresa.

reconmike, how did they waterboard you? Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I can't imagine being waterboarded for more than maybe 45 seconds at a time maybe 2 or 3 times in a row. I ended up puking.

This is how I feel about it as well.