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Old 05-23-2009, 09:47 AM   #1 (permalink)
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Conservative Shock Jock: Waterboarding is torture

Quote:
Mancow Waterboarded, Admits It's Torture

link to article

And so it went Friday morning when WLS radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided to subject himself to the controversial practice of waterboarding live on his show.

Mancow decided to tackle the divisive issue head on -- actually it was head down, while restrained and reclining.

"I want to find out if it's torture," Mancow told his listeners Friday morning, adding that he hoped his on-air test would help prove that waterboarding did not, in fact, constitute torture.

The debate over whether waterboarding constitutes torture reached a fever pitch this week as re-ignited claims that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) knew as early as 2002 about waterboarding techniques being used, and former Vice President Dick Cheney and President Barack Obama gave "dueling speeches" Thursday.

Listeners had the chance to decide whether Mancow himself or his co-host, Chicago radio personality Pat Cassidy, would undergo the interrogation method during the broadcast. The voters ultimately decided Mancow would be the one donning the soaked towel and shackles, and at about 8:40 a.m., he entered a small storage room next to his studio that was compared to a "dungeon" by Cassidy.

"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."

With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.

Turns out the stunt wasn't so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke,"Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face...I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "

Last year, Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens endured the same experiment -- and came to a similar conclusion. The conservative writer said he found the treatment terrifying, and was haunted by it for months afterward.

"Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture," Hitchens concluded in the article.
The video of the stunt:


Watching the video, it doesn't seem as bad as the article describes (no thrashing around, no throwing of the toy), but despite that, it's obvious that it had a profound effect on him.

I have to admit, I have a lot of respect for him having the guts to back up all of his rhetoric and endure what he had thought wouldn't be that bad. It also just sickens me more to realize that Cheney came out and said equating waterboarding to torture was to "libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims" when it's obvious based on the video that the sole purpose of that technique is to torture, and the reason for Cheney's statements are purely strawman arguments designed to make attacks on his administration's policies sound like treasonous attacks on the troops.

In light of yet another conservative coming out after having actually experienced waterboarding instead of just making statements about what he guesses it would be like, how can waterboarding still be justified as not being torture? I'd really like people's thoughts and ideas on this as I'm genuinely at a loss as to how that happens.
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Old 05-23-2009, 10:34 AM   #2 (permalink)
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Wonder what excuse they'll come with with now? Yesterday Cheney's daughter, Liz(?,) said it wasn't torture. When told we prosecuted people for water boarding because it is torture she said two things- There were other circumstances then (what? I have no idea) and it worked so it saved US lives so it's legal. What does it matter if it worked? Legal is legal and illegal is illegal. Why would the ends justify the means? Legally that sounds like horse shit.
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Old 05-23-2009, 10:48 AM   #3 (permalink)
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I think the problem is in playing word games: Is it "torture," or is it a "harsh interrogation technique"?

Is it that difficult to call a spade a spade? Is this cruel and unusual punishment?

I believe it is. The use of waterboarding is unconstitutional and against international law.
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Old 05-23-2009, 11:32 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Tully Mars View Post
What does it matter if it worked?
Who's to say it actually worked, except in justificationland, where correlation equals causation?

I haven't been in a single car accident since 9/11/2001. Waterboarding must be making me a safe driver!

Never mind that I've NEVER been in a car accident...

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Old 05-23-2009, 11:38 AM   #5 (permalink)
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I should go start a thread about torture.
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Old 05-23-2009, 11:47 AM   #6 (permalink)
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Everyone here who wants to share their opinion on whether or not it's torture should have to perform the same experiment beforehand. Legal questions are fine, but don't say it is or isn't torture without knowing for yourself.
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Old 05-23-2009, 11:48 AM   #7 (permalink)
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I'm surprised he actually admitted it was torture, since Mancow has more or less been lying about everything on his show for the past 15 years
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Old 05-23-2009, 11:55 AM   #8 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Bacchanal View Post
Everyone here who wants to share their opinion on whether or not it's torture should have to perform the same experiment beforehand. Legal questions are fine, but don't say it is or isn't torture without knowing for yourself.
That's goofy logic. I certainly I don't need water poured down my throat to know it's torture. I'll take the Cow Man's word for it.
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Old 05-23-2009, 12:28 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bacchanal View Post
Everyone here who wants to share their opinion on whether or not it's torture should have to perform the same experiment beforehand. Legal questions are fine, but don't say it is or isn't torture without knowing for yourself.
Ha. Clever little empiricist, are you? Fortunately, it doesn't need to work that way. I don't have to put someone to death with my own hands before arguing against capital punishment and whether that is unnecessarily cruel.

This is a moral question, not just a technical one.
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Old 05-23-2009, 02:20 PM   #10 (permalink)
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My father went through 3 tiers of SERE school. He told me the other day he has gone through 3 days worth of continuous water boarding. He tells me it's not torture, I'm going with him.
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Old 05-23-2009, 02:38 PM   #11 (permalink)
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My father went through 3 tiers of SERE school. He told me the other day he has gone through 3 days worth of continuous water boarding. He tells me it's not torture, I'm going with him.
Seaver, I'll respect your fathers SERE school training and 3 days of waterboarding, but in all honesty, he's an ignorant fool if he claims its not torture.
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Old 05-23-2009, 02:41 PM   #12 (permalink)
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Dude, no need for that, dk.

Anyway, Seaver, I'll waterboard you. I'm getting pretty good at it (the trick is to bound the hands and torso in addition to the feet). My guess is that you can break 10 seconds, but I doubt you'll be able to say it's not torture.
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Old 05-23-2009, 03:37 PM   #13 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru View Post
Ha. Clever little empiricist, are you? Fortunately, it doesn't need to work that way. I don't have to put someone to death with my own hands before arguing against capital punishment and whether that is unnecessarily cruel.

This is a moral question, not just a technical one.
I understand that. I just didn't want to see an entire thread of:

"x says it's torture, so it is"

"y disagrees with x, so it can't be"

I'm half tempted to try it, so I might have a valid opinion. Maybe not though...
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Old 05-23-2009, 04:58 PM   #14 (permalink)
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Old 05-23-2009, 05:07 PM   #15 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Willravel View Post
I should go start a thread about torture.
I actually think you should!

Anyway, meh, who cares about legality, calling it "torture" or ""harsh interrogation technique", doesn't matter.

It's not like America is running around grabbing people, strapping them to a board and using "waterboarding" to extract information.

You want torture? Look to history, to the racks, burning at the stake, quartering, disembowlement, a father who had no other choice but try and jump to his death from the World Trade Center(s) in the hope of survival.

Is it pretty? No. Is it necessary? Maybe. Society may have become more "advanced" in their abilities, but the end result remains the same.

Tell us what you know, tell us who else is helping you. Because we will end this, whether it's with arrowheads attached to spears, burning your crops, stealing your women, inflitrating your government, dropping a nuke on you, whatever it takes, we will end this.

We can't respect everyones rights when the perception of the rights changes or is challenged.

We are civilized.

We are advanced?

We still have to protect. At any cost.

How much blood has been spilt, from the Revolutionary War to today, to secure the way of life this Country enjoys. Millions? Hundreds of thousands? One is one too many. They died, we live. They sacrificed, we enjoy.

Waterboard? Do it. Give me a break. Do it. Do whatever needs to be done so all those who have died, sacrificed life and limb, given their only sons (or daughters) to protect and defend this Country, that their death is not forgotten, is not remembered.

Would YOU die to protect the American way of life?
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Old 05-23-2009, 06:04 PM   #16 (permalink)
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I care about the legality of torture. I also care whether the US is engaging in illegal activities.
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Old 05-23-2009, 06:05 PM   #17 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Halanna View Post
I actually think you should!

Anyway, meh, who cares about legality, calling it "torture" or ""harsh interrogation technique", doesn't matter.

It's not like America is running around grabbing people, strapping them to a board and using "waterboarding" to extract information.

You want torture? Look to history, to the racks, burning at the stake, quartering, disembowlement, a father who had no other choice but try and jump to his death from the World Trade Center(s) in the hope of survival.

Is it pretty? No. Is it necessary? Maybe. Society may have become more "advanced" in their abilities, but the end result remains the same.

Tell us what you know, tell us who else is helping you. Because we will end this, whether it's with arrowheads attached to spears, burning your crops, stealing your women, inflitrating your government, dropping a nuke on you, whatever it takes, we will end this.

We can't respect everyones rights when the perception of the rights changes or is challenged.

We are civilized.

We are advanced?

We still have to protect. At any cost.

How much blood has been spilt, from the Revolutionary War to today, to secure the way of life this Country enjoys. Millions? Hundreds of thousands? One is one too many. They died, we live. They sacrificed, we enjoy.

Waterboard? Do it. Give me a break. Do it. Do whatever needs to be done so all those who have died, sacrificed life and limb, given their only sons (or daughters) to protect and defend this Country, that their death is not forgotten, is not remembered.

Would YOU die to protect the American way of life?
So its only torture if the person dies?

And what does the subject at hand has to do with dying for the "American way of life?"

And this is all, of course, based on an unsubstantiated notion that the torture worked...
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Old 05-23-2009, 07:07 PM   #18 (permalink)
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Supporting torture because you have an emotional attachment to those who sacrificed for the country is a dangerous way of going about things
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Old 05-23-2009, 07:25 PM   #19 (permalink)
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Anybody dumb enough to waterboard people without having been trained to do so has no credibility to be posting about this subject.
Anyone dumb enough to assume something as simple as waterboarding requires anything more than basic CPR training should probably avoid walking and chewing gum at the same time. We've been doing this since before the Spanish Inquisition, the idea that it's somehow complex communicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the process. Maybe you should learn more about waterboarding.
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Old 05-23-2009, 07:26 PM   #20 (permalink)
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I actually think you should!

Anyway, meh, who cares about legality, calling it "torture" or ""harsh interrogation technique", doesn't matter.

It's not like America is running around grabbing people, strapping them to a board and using "waterboarding" to extract information.

You want torture? Look to history, to the racks, burning at the stake, quartering, disembowlement, a father who had no other choice but try and jump to his death from the World Trade Center(s) in the hope of survival.

Is it pretty? No. Is it necessary? Maybe. Society may have become more "advanced" in their abilities, but the end result remains the same.

Tell us what you know, tell us who else is helping you. Because we will end this, whether it's with arrowheads attached to spears, burning your crops, stealing your women, inflitrating your government, dropping a nuke on you, whatever it takes, we will end this.

We can't respect everyones rights when the perception of the rights changes or is challenged.

We are civilized.

We are advanced?

We still have to protect. At any cost.

How much blood has been spilt, from the Revolutionary War to today, to secure the way of life this Country enjoys. Millions? Hundreds of thousands? One is one too many. They died, we live. They sacrificed, we enjoy.

Waterboard? Do it. Give me a break. Do it. Do whatever needs to be done so all those who have died, sacrificed life and limb, given their only sons (or daughters) to protect and defend this Country, that their death is not forgotten, is not remembered.

Would YOU die to protect the American way of life?
Pretty speech. Sad that the experts all say that torture is more likely to produce incorrect information. So, torture is actually BAD for America. Oh well.
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Old 05-23-2009, 07:28 PM   #21 (permalink)
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Pretty speech. Sad that the experts all say that torture is more likely to produce incorrect information. So, torture is actually BAD for America. Oh well.

Be quiet, the terrorist will hear you.
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Old 05-23-2009, 07:28 PM   #22 (permalink)
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Pretty speech. Sad that the experts all say that torture is more likely to produce incorrect information. So, torture is actually BAD for America. Oh well.
This has probably been said across a dozen threads hundreds of times by now. When will people get this?
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Old 05-23-2009, 07:39 PM   #23 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Halanna View Post
Tell us what you know, tell us who else is helping you. Because we will end this, whether it's with arrowheads attached to spears, burning your crops, stealing your women, inflitrating your government, dropping a nuke on you, whatever it takes, we will end this.

[...]

Waterboard? Do it. Give me a break. Do it. Do whatever needs to be done so all those who have died, sacrificed life and limb, given their only sons (or daughters) to protect and defend this Country, that their death is not forgotten, is not remembered.

Would YOU die to protect the American way of life?
If enough people take on this line of thinking, the American way of life is doomed to fail.

Arguably, it's doomed to fail by other means anyway. Why throw fuel on the fire?
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Old 05-23-2009, 07:52 PM   #24 (permalink)
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I care about the legality of torture. I also care whether the US is engaging in illegal activities.
I gotta tell ya, if I was living in Mexico sucking down margaritas on the white sands of the Mayan Riviera everyday, I wouldn't give 2 schnikees about much of anything except where to get a good burrito grande con salsa verde. Wanna trade lives?
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Old 05-23-2009, 07:59 PM   #25 (permalink)
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I gotta tell ya I still pay US taxes (Oregon Property too) and I care where my tax dollars go and what my home country does. I should also tell you I live on the other side of the Yucatan, gulf coast. But no I don't want to trade lives.
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Old 05-23-2009, 08:00 PM   #26 (permalink)
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I guess that makes Tully Mars a patriot. That and his honorable service to our country.
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Old 05-23-2009, 08:04 PM   #27 (permalink)
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This has probably been said across a dozen threads hundreds of times by now. When will people get this?

When they stop thinking of waterboarding as a government sanctioned revenge fantasy for 9/11
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Old 05-23-2009, 08:05 PM   #28 (permalink)
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Anybody dumb enough to waterboard people without having been trained to do so has no credibility to be posting about this subject.
there is absolutely no level of training sufficient enough to move torture to a higher level so that it isn't torture. whether somebody was trained to do it or not is irrelevant.
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Old 05-23-2009, 08:06 PM   #29 (permalink)
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Anyone dumb enough to assume something as simple as waterboarding requires anything more than basic CPR training should probably avoid walking and chewing gum at the same time. We've been doing this since before the Spanish Inquisition, the idea that it's somehow complex communicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the process. Maybe you should learn more about waterboarding.
Just exactly how many people have you waterboarded?
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Old 05-23-2009, 08:07 PM   #30 (permalink)
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Would YOU die to protect the American way of life?
I've served 6 years in a position to do just that and no matter the situation, i would not want a government to torture any other individual to 'honor' my sacrifice because it would lessen any honor I gained by doing so.
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Old 05-23-2009, 08:20 PM   #31 (permalink)
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Would YOU die to protect the American way of life?
I wish I could attribute what I'm about to say to the correct source, because I don't want to pass off someone else's words as my own, but I don't recall who said it, so I'll just have to say that the words aren't originally mine.

That being said, I heard once that anyone can die for a cause. Dying takes no great sacrifice. We all do it eventually. It takes no extra feat of patriotism to get shot by a sniper's bullet. It's not a conscious act of devotion to die in a bomb blast. The true measure of dedication to a cause is killing for it. True dedication comes from the sense that you believe in something so strongly, you'll kill to protect it. So the question shouldn't be: would you die for your way of life? The question should be: would you kill for your way of life?
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Old 05-23-2009, 09:22 PM   #32 (permalink)
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Just exactly how many people have you waterboarded?
Three people. The first one was a dare and the second two were about proving it was torture. I figure I took CPR in high school (required course) so even if something goes wrong there's not a big chance of anything going wrong.
Quote:
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I heard once that anyone can die for a cause. Dying takes no great sacrifice. We all do it eventually. It takes no extra feat of patriotism to get shot by a sniper's bullet. It's not a conscious act of devotion to die in a bomb blast. The true measure of dedication to a cause is killing for it. True dedication comes from the sense that you believe in something so strongly, you'll kill to protect it. So the question shouldn't be: would you die for your way of life? The question should be: would you kill for your way of life?
I know this is off your point, and I agree with the point you're making, but what does it mean if you're not willing to kill for your way of life? Isn't that just a different principle?
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Old 05-23-2009, 09:32 PM   #33 (permalink)
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I would personally waterboard anyone if it meant I could possibly get information that would prevent an American from being harmed.
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Old 05-23-2009, 10:01 PM   #34 (permalink)
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Three people. The first one was a dare and the second two were about proving it was torture. I figure I took CPR in high school (required course) so even if something goes wrong there's not a big chance of anything going wrong.

I know this is off your point, and I agree with the point you're making, but what does it mean if you're not willing to kill for your way of life? Isn't that just a different principle?
Personally, I don't think it means any less if someone isn't willing to kill for a way of life. I don't even think I believe the will to kill for a cause is the ultimate act of dedication. For me it's an effective method of pointing out the ridiculousness of the idea that the act of dying is somehow more noble than not dying or that those who did die died with intent of demonstrating dedication to a cause.

How does this relate to torture? Because the arguments used use emotion to elicit a response that doesn't mean anything other than we're emotional creatures who like to respond with emotion. The argument "Wouldn't you want a terrorist tortured if it meant gathering information that could save your family?" is a meaningless argument. It's supposed to tug at our emotions, to get us to believe that life is like an episode of "24" and we'll get the answers just in the nick of time and save those innocent people!

It also means that you cannot successfully argue a legal point with someone who makes these determinations from a purely emotional standpoint. We could sit here all day and unload truckloads of evidence that supports the viewpoint that torture is ineffective and immoral and they'll still respond with, "Yeah, but what if it was your family being held and the terrorist with the information to save them..." and so on and so on.
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Old 05-23-2009, 10:40 PM   #35 (permalink)
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I would personally waterboard anyone if it meant I could possibly get information that would prevent an American from being harmed.
Torture isn't ever the most reliable method of extracting information (according to the experts, which have been cited in non-pub discussion threads time and again), therefore you waterboarding someone wouldn't be you trying your best to save American lives. It'd be you acting, as JJ said above, on emotion instead of logic. Logic dictates you use the method with the highest probability of success. Emotion means you fly off the handle and get people killed.

You're creating a hypothetical situation that can't happen in order to support your position.
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Old 05-24-2009, 05:41 AM   #36 (permalink)
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I would personally waterboard anyone if it meant I could possibly get information that would prevent an American from being harmed.
Would you waterboard someone if you knew that they'd tell you anything you wanted to hear, true or not, to get you to stop and not do it again? Because that's what the actual TRUTH is.

Not that the truth matters, when Amurrka's at risk, but what the hell, you can't fault a liberal for trying.
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Old 05-24-2009, 05:54 AM   #37 (permalink)
 
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comrades, could we tone down the name calling please?

===================================

i kinda agree with jj--dying is in itself not a great achievement. it's not symbolic of anything. stories people tell about the deaths of others make them symbolic of something. but there is no meaning in death itself. certainly not for the dead.

i think the reason the thread's been a name-calling match really is that the topic has been worked through enough that what's left here is the basic conflict over framework that is the conflict between political positions. it's a pretty stark difference between frameworks: more conservative folk see questions of security over-riding questions of legality. others see the legality as the primary frame. conservative arguments tend to lead avoid the fact that it is the state that acted to inflict torture by trying to move the question onto a subjective level: this is the basis for such argument as there is about levels of pain and whether waterboarding is or is not torture. others see that the state was the actor, that the state is bound by law, that torture is a legal construct and that the bush administration violated the law in authorizing torture.

that's the differend.
now its lather'(rinse) repeat.
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Old 05-24-2009, 06:30 AM   #38 (permalink)
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Using logic, we can determine that any method beyond standard verbal interrogation is excessive and immoral. Why does the method even exist for the purpose of extracting information if not for the threat it imposes? It is so blatant. The fact that people support waterboarding, torture or not, is disturbing. It is clearly a case of "as long as its not me." Whether you consider it torture or not doesn't even matter because we all have different stances anyways. It still is what it is.

Let me put it another way: If it isn't torture, what is it? A creative way to administer truth serum? The dude wouldn't tell you shit before, but you poured a gallon of water on his face and now he'll sing like a bird! I wonder what happened! I guess it was holy water or something.

Get fucking real.
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Old 05-24-2009, 07:11 AM   #39 (permalink)
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Torture certainly worked with me. When my older brother would sit on me, twist both my arms behind my back until the pain was too much and demanded to know where the tv remote was, I sang like a bird.
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Old 05-24-2009, 08:02 AM   #40 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Willravel View Post
Torture isn't ever the most reliable method of extracting information (according to the experts, which have been cited in non-pub discussion threads time and again), therefore you waterboarding someone wouldn't be you trying your best to save American lives. It'd be you acting, as JJ said above, on emotion instead of logic. Logic dictates you use the method with the highest probability of success. Emotion means you fly off the handle and get people killed.

You're creating a hypothetical situation that can't happen in order to support your position.
Listen, you are going around thinking that the powers that be are going around just grabbing people willy nilly and waterboarding them to get them to confess to things we want them to confess to. The truth is, after everything else has been done, we are waterboarding people that we already know that they have information that can save American lives. Then we waterboard them to get that information. How can anyone object to that.

If I knew that someone had information that could help save an American, I would waterboard them in a heartbeat. Anyone who wouldn't do that is selfish. They would be holding their own belief system higher than a countryman's life.

And beside, this false outrage over waterboarding is all moot. Its been done to only three people. And the information we got out of it is still classified by Obama. Which goes to show that it does work, or the information gotten out of them would be relased to show its uselessness.
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