Conservative Shock Jock: Waterboarding is torture
 

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.

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.

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.

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...

I should go start a thread about torture.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

..

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?

I care about the legality of torture. I also care whether the US is engaging in illegal activities.

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...

Supporting torture because you have an emotional attachment to those who sacrificed for the country is a dangerous way of going about things

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.

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.

This has probably been said across a dozen threads hundreds of times by now. When will people get this?

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?

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?

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.

I guess that makes Tully Mars a patriot. That and his honorable service to our country.

When they stop thinking of waterboarding as a government sanctioned revenge fantasy for 9/11

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.

Just exactly how many people have you waterboarded?

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.

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?

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?

I would personally waterboard anyone if it meant I could possibly get information that would prevent an American from being harmed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Would you suggest rolling out a waterboarding program to American citizens accused of various crimes? I think America is years behind China when it comes to their justice system. Dontcha think?

Anyone who believes that the US should follow the law objects to it.

I'm not going around thinking it, I'm basing my opinion on articles written by some of the best investigative journalists in the world about how we tortured to manufacture a link between al Qaeda and Iraq that didn't exist. Google it.
I object to it because it doesn't work, and fortunately I have a virtual consensus among the experts to back me up on that. Who do you have backing up your side? Neoconservative chickenhawks that never served like Bush, Cheney and Rice?
We already know that the information that came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wasn't legitimate, thus verifying that torture didn't work. Furthermore, we know for a fact that the US waterboarding is a successful recruitment tool for al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other anti-US militant forces in the Middle East. Literally no reason whatsoever exists to waterboard. We're just digging ourselves into a bigger hole.

BTW, this PUB DISCUSSION format may seem nice on the surface, but the inability to cite sources means that anyone can say anything and you can't demonstrate that they're wrong. It's enough to start a bar fight.

..

Personal attacks don't fly here. Stick to the facts.

it's good you have no power then, zenturian.

Waterboarding by its very definition is torture. Inflicting mental pain on someone to get a confession. That's the whole point of it isn't it?

The morality is debatable, not the fact that it is torture.

It's SO interesting that now the morality is debatable. It never was, before this "is waterboarding torture" argument got headed toward being settled. The whole point of having that argument is, we're America, we're a country of laws, and we don't torture. So waterboarding (which we've done, nobody denies--although they used to) can't be torture. QED.

Now that waterboarding appears to preeeeetty much be torture, and some way right-wing folks are agreeing about that, NOW we get people saying, well, maybe it is torture but maybe torture is okay. Ooh, ooh, if American Lives are at risk, then sure, fuck the laws, let's cut off fingers! Which, by the way Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld NEVER claimed. They always said that torture is wrong, it's illegal and immoral, we don't torture, and waterboarding isn't torture. Even now, with Cheney doing a fucking media tour to attack the current administration (which has been a MASSIVE no-no for every administration prior to his), he's not changing his tune about that.

The new shifting "24 morality" is all transparently and cynically about a post-facto justification for the actions we've already taken.

Look: news came out this week about a man--a man who hasn't even been charged with anything, and against whom there are no charges planned, who under our law IS INNOCENT until proven guilty--whose genitals were routinely and systematically mutilated by Guantanamo interrogators and guards. Is that torture? If not... how do you figure? If so... how can you stand by that?

and that's why I've always said, "I'm fine with torture." I've explained it in a few other threads...and for the sake of keeping the smoldering fire from igniting, one can just look for those posts.

Actually I originally put that is torture and illegal,but I knew some people would try to argue that. You're right but some people will still try to justify there actions no matter what. That's what I meant by it's morality being questionable,not the act itself.

If the American citizen was withholding information that could save an other American, then yes. Do it to save lives, not to get people to confess to things they didn't do.

---------- Post added at 08:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:12 PM ----------


What law says we can't waterboard?

Um.....the laws that say torture is illegal?

...torturing is inhumane. There are more humane ways of getting the information we need that also won't jeopardize our reputation with the rest of the world...and, yes, that's important.

...besides, why would people, who want to die martyrs, be willing to confess the truth because of torture? It's my understanding, regarding muslim extremists, that the more painful the death the more pleasing to their Allah...and thus bigger rewards in the afterlife.

The FBI Agent testified the other day we were getting better info before the CIA came in a started the torture and water boarding stuff. If it's illegal and produces poor info what's the point? Other then just wanting to make people suffer. Or maybe they want the guy to admit to BS that never happened? You know like a link between Iraq and the 9-11 bombers.

Will, no offense, but that's naive and negligent at best. Would you strangle someone just because you know CPR? It's extraordinarily dangerous to do and if something goes seriously wrong, that CPR training doesn't mean anything.

What's the point of any person defending a position they don't believe in? Stubbornness. Being a stubborn person myself, I can attest to how difficult it is to admit that I'm wrong, but it has to happen when I'm faced with overwhelming evidence and a bullet-proof argument. You don't just get to be wrong and never admit it without losing all credibility. Look at former Vice President Dick "I'm a fucking joke" Cheney.

---------- Post added at 06:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:01 PM ----------

Strangulation isn't the same thing as getting water up your nose. By my understanding, being strangled at all can theoretically cause permanent physical damage and even death. Waterboarding is used specifically because it can be done again and again and again. It leaves no physical damage beyond extreme discomfort. The worst case scenario is gagging and a small amount of water in the lungs. It's why the water is poured slowly, so that only a small amount of water can get into the lungs if any.

Anyway, I stopped doing it the weekend after I did it the first time simply because it seemed more like something a freshman might to do get into a second-rate frat house. And this was a while ago. And you're totally right, in hindsight it was really stupid.

For the sake of this thread, I must say that those who don't think waterboarding is torture (and that haven't gone through it themselves) don't have the necessary experience to make that determination. That was the point. It's not just holding your breath, it's a perfect simulation for that moment in drowning when you're panicking and losing hope of reaching the surface.

Has it been declared torture?

We prosecuted people for waterboarding on the charge of torture. The convictions in those trials set legal precedent.

You realize that we are looking weak to those that wish to kill us. They want to kill you too. Being nice to them will only encourage them. Can't wait till Republicans are back in power. There will be massive attack while Obama's in office. They smell weakness.

True, but those people would force water down a soldiers throat until he passed out.

The US application was considerably different, shorter duration, and without unconsciousness.

Just as twisting someones arm may be perfectly legal to force compliance during an arrest but excessive force if it is twisted so hard it is broken in multiple places.

Scaring someone simply isn't torture. The recent application of water boarding was controlled specifically to elicit fear without causing damage.

Actually, by torturing we're making them stronger. Like I said before, it's their strongest recruiting tool. Google it.
You're wrong about that one, too. They don't want to kill Americans that are against military expansionism and that are open minded about Islam. If I was actually in any kind of real danger from terrorism (I'm more likely to be hit by lightning three times), my death would be indiscriminate. So no, they don't want to kill me, it's more just a general anger towards our government and those that prop up some very stupid foreign policy.
When I want to know about the Middle East and terrorism, I'll be sure to check with Republicans. Because they have such an outstanding track record. Just out of curiosity, from your extensive knowledge of the Middle East and Islam, which Hadith contains the passage about 72 virgins?

---------- Post added at 09:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:49 PM ----------

With all due respect, we don't know whether or not we did that too because of the lack of transparency. And Cheney's disingenuous calls for records ignore the fact that a lot of the worst stuff likely wasn't officially recorded. I would hope we didn't allow the detainees to pass out due to the level of torture, but considering what we're hearing about detainees having their testicles sliced with a scalpel... I can't really buy it without some serious evidence.
That's just it, though, torture isn't just defined as physical harm. It also includes mental suffering. I'm sure if, after you leave out hypothetical pub, you were to read the UN Convention Against Torture (which the US has signed and is thus US law), you would notice that the definition in the convention includes both physical and mental suffering.

This is not about looking weak. This is about being strong enough to do the right thing. The US is not a nation of people. It is a nation of laws. It is that distinction that sets the US apart from the rest of the world.

The US is only weak when it forgets this.

I can read the back and forth in these debates just fine, and see both points of view, until I come across a nugget like this.

This ain't Wild fucking Kingdom. Nobody's "smelling" anything. This is nothing more than sensationalist partisan bullshit. Any credibility or point you might have been making just went down the shitter.

Yes, because they'd never attack while a Republican is in office. If only a Republican was in office on 9/11... oh.

Yeah, that is why so many officers on the ground have said that Abu Ghraib and Gitmo are the main recruiting tools for the insurgents....

This is so true. Each moment the U.S. throws one of its principles to the wind is a moment of weakness.

The United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights...there aren't mere words. The further the nation deviates from the terms outlined therein, the greater its chance of becoming weakened.

If anything, the terrorists want the U.S. to break laws, to break from morals, to break principles. Once those are lost, what does it have left?

+1

A couple of questions if you'll indulge me for a moment.

1. Are you admitting to waterboarding three people?

2. From your statements, you've claimed that waterboarding is torture and that torture is illegal. Have you turned yourself in to be investigated for the commission of these crimes?

3. Can I assume from your history of posting that less than seven years has transpired since you committed these crimes?

4. Do you believe your crimes should be investigated by the proper authorities?

You have to give it proper context, namely consent. If I walk up to someone on the street and punch him in the face, that's assault. If I do it in a boxing ring, it's a sport. If I have sex with a woman and she doesn't want it, it's rape. If she does, it's sex. Anyway, the guy in the above video certainly wasn't arrested for waterboarding that disc jockey. The training staff at SERE school aren't dragged off in handcuffs.

Like most crimes, torture is torture because it's not consensual. But you already know that.

There's no need to be pedantic, JJ. Will obviously had the consent of his "victims". That makes it an entirely different thing from torturing prisoners of war.

Waterboarding isn't torture because I say it's not. And, yes, that's a perfectly valid reason. The problem with the "It's torture!" crowd is that, by following the logic that any physical, mental or emotional pain inflicted on someone solely to obtain information is torture, then any way used to glean information from someone which isn't, "Please tell me what you know?" would have to be, by it's very definition, also torture.

Someone please tell me what the difference between forcing someone to live in solitary confinement in a completely dark room for days/weeks at a time and waterboarding is? Someone please tell me what wouldn't constitute torture

And THAT, my friends, is why Pub Discussion fails.

"Torture" is actually a defined term, per a UN Convention that the US is a signatory on. But I can't cite it given the parameters of this thread.

Short version: YOU DON'T GET TO SAY WHAT IS AND ISN'T TORTURE.

It isn't a valid reason. Sorry.

There are stories of CIA getting more information from a game of chess with their prisoners than from torture.

This logic is torture.

The problem with those who say it isn't torture is that they don't understand what it means by "cruel and unusual punishment." We don't waterboard children to get them to tell us who stole the cookie from the cookie jar. We don't waterboard priests until they confess they've diddled children. We don't waterboard white collar criminals to make them confess to the extent of their insider trading.

Why don't we?

Waterboarding is unconstitutional if not illegal; it's immoral if not unbecoming of a state that is supposed to uphold ideals of democracy and freedom and justice.

i say the sky is green.
it doesn't matter what you say.
it doesn't matter what the social conventions are that distinguish one color from another.
it doesn't matter what agreements there are that identify color.
i say it's green.
so there.

What wouldn't? Trying, convicting (based on the evidence), and then, after they've been legally incarcerated, questioning them using legal and proven techniques of questioning... that wouldn't be torture, and it's the smart way to go because we don't embolden our "enemies" by giving them an incredibly powerful recruiting tool.

What do you suppose happens if the detainees come back home and say, "They treated me with respect, they tried me on the evidence, and I was found innocent and allowed to come back to my family"? Do you think that would make them hate us more or maybe rethink their position on the evil Americans?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your post, but those are the parameters defined by the U.N.

...And I've really got to start using the sarcasm tags, as it's hard to convey over the internet (Apparently).

Well, first of all, waterboarding isn't unconstitutional nor illegal (In the U.S.). You might want it to be, but it isn't and referencing them as such doesn't do much to help your argument. But, moving on. The reason we waterboard suspected terrorists is because they're suspected terrorists who don't operate under the guidelines set forth by the Geneva Convention. They frequently target civilians, behead PoW's or journalists and have publicly stated that they won't stop until the opposing side is wiped out. We don't waterboard children because they're crimes don't necessitate being waterboarded. The same with priests or white collar criminals. Hell, we wouldn't even torture normal PoW's who were organized under a common banner.

I don't care how callous of a sentiment you think it is, but if they're not going to "play nice", then neither should we. To make use of a popular idiom, "All's fair in love and war".

Can no one pick up sarcasm anymore?

I'm not that naive. Our enemies don't need a new recruiting tool. They have 30/40/50 years worth of it. If you want to believe that a suspected terrorist released back to their country of origin would suddenly lose their anger and hatred towards the U.S., then that's your right to do so. But just because you believe it, doesn't make it so. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of detainees released by the U.S. went right back and joined a terrorist cell, and that they would do so regardless of the way they were treated whilst detained.

And through all of this, no one answered my questions so I'll ask again:

It isn't torture because I say so. That's a topper. You just can't beat logic like that. I going to try that with my broker. My account has several million, no wait billion dollars in it because I say it does. I'll keep you all posted on how it goes. If it works I'm planning one big ass TFP party. Location to be determined on whether he buys the millions or billions argument.

I've stayed out of this conversation, mostly because I think it's a gigantic joke. Anyone that thinks that any sort of valid information can come from anything that's borderline torture (and defining that border is the basis for this discussion) is a fool. That includes our former Vice President. I arrive at that conclusion based on the experience of the Soviets, who, in the 1920's and 1930's, created vast conspiracies from the ether based on torture, generally without resorting to violence. Waterboarding was used in rare circumstances but required too much work. The US government employees and their contractors engaged in the sleep deprivation, starvation and confinement techniques perfected by the Stalinists.

The last 8 years or so has been one of the greatest hypocrisies in modern history since torture was something we routinely condemned less than 20 years ago and was completely unthinkable here 10 years ago. But now that we're doing it, it's somehow ok. If an American thinks torture is somehow appropriate EVER, then you need to get the hell out. We don't want your kind here.

I remember when the ACLU filed a lawsuit because prisoners were being subjected to 'cruelty'.....the "Barney Theme Song" piped non-stop into their cells for hours on end. While they agreed the volume was at a reasonable level, the song itself is what was considered the problem.


Given the choice between one waterboarding session and 12 straight hours of Barney, I am sure they would have chosen the waterboarding.


More humane.

You're assuming that waterboarding isn't cruel and unusual punishment. It is, which is why it's unconstitutional. If it weren't cruel and unusual, it could be a standard practice in the justice system.

This is why the terrorists are winning. They want America to play outside of its own boundaries. They're destroying the nation from within. That's what terror does.

So to fight the terrorists one much do as they do. Interesting. You condone the moral destruction of America?

The basest form of irony? It's often hard to detect in text. It usually benefits from tonal nuances in speech, in addition to facial expressions such as eye rolling. :)

Who said a "new" recruiting tool? Torture is their main recruiting tool. Main. Central. Most important. Without it, they would have lost their main recruiting tool.
You've already lost that bet.
The difference is the intensity of suffering.

Not only is it cruel and unusual punishment, but there is actual legal precedent of the US prosecuting people for it.

This sort of "slippery slope" fallacy that you are trying to cling to here is just that, a fallacy. Claiming that it can't be torture because then anything that is unpleasant is torture is a great example of that fallacy.

what's funny to me in this thread is that the more conservative folk persist in trying to control the rules that shape how the question of torture is framed, to keep it away from legal matters and problems that follow from the state as actor and instead want to substitute some manly man nonsense the basis for which is really nothing other than "the notion of torture is for wimps."

that folk seem to confuse this with an actual argument about torture makes the whole thing funnier still.

but it's not like this manly man shit isn't an element of how american foreign policy has worked for the past 70-odd years--after all, similar kinds of arguments underpin the national security state--effectively that if stalin was a dictator who didn't require parliamentary approval to act, then the united states had to structure itself so that it too could act as a dictatorship under certain conditions ("national security" dontcha know)--and there has been a steady stream of ultra-rightwingers who've been in positions to institute this logic through such delights as fascist paramilitaries in latin america and africa. there's a side of the united states that's been one of the priniciple terrorist organizations on the planet since the late 1940s. the problem that the ineptness of the bush administration created really is that now these practices are surfacing, and they're running into the fact that this ultra-right dimension of american-ness has been allowed to happen because it happens in the shadows---exposed the self-evident contradiction between it and any meaningful sense of "rule of law" makes the continuation of this fascist extension of the american empire untenable.

in the end it was always the manly men of the ultra-right who thought not only that torture was for wimps, but that law was as well.

to argue that torture is not torture if you in your manly man fantasy-world imagine that you'd be able to stand up to it sets you and only you up as the ultimate arbiter of everything. psychological dysfunction aside (narcissism--a kind of arrested development that stopped out just after object permanence--so an infantile view of the world) in a curious way these folk make the entire idea of a "war on terror" into a joke because, fundamentally, they are what they oppose. except of course these folk imagine that their Cause is correct and they believe it absolutely and so they can't possibly be what they oppose because those they oppose believe their cause is correct and they believe it absolutely.

the idiocy of this is astonishing.
fortunately, confined to the space of a messageboard, it unfolds as a joke. so it's funny.

He has not lost that bet, the Pentagon released a study stating that 1 in 7 of the detained released from gitmo... it's not all but it's more than 0.

---------- Post added at 02:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:43 PM ----------

and that's why i'm not interested in parsing the nuances, it's wrong on it's face, but at the same time so is murder and killing, yet that's acceptable in war or skirmish. This is why I've simply framed that I'm fine with it. America being the pinnacle of morals is not anything close to what I understand America. No moral high ground here that I see. We've stolen land, had our own genocide, corrupt politicians, and tortured people. To think that this is the end all be all, is naive at best.

I'm afraid the Pentagon released that statistic without anything to back it up. Because records on detainees are so poor, there's literally no way the Pentagon could possibly know who were actually terrorists before they were picked up or who were innocent. This has been verified repeatedly in articles that I cannot cite here, but you can google if you google, say, "pentagon 1 7 return battlefield". When you get home from the pub. Worse still, the 1 in 7 that have become "terrorists" since being released have not been confirmed. The only two names that have come up—Mullah Shazada and Abdullah Al Ajmi—are involved in supposed terrorism that is HIGHLY suspect (it doesn't appear Mullah Shazada was ever captured, and there's no evidence Abdullah Al Ajmi blew himself up after being released).

I was under the recidivism rate argument had been debunked on TFP a while ago. Maybe it was another forum.

---------- Post added at 12:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 PM ----------

Sometimes they are generally acceptable, but other times not so much. We have rules of war that we have to abide by. If we break those rules, there should be consequences.

cyn--we've run through this before...the aspect of your position i respect while disagreeing is that you just say it. the problem is that it's hard to imagine a functional grounds on which this ok-ness could justify itself---on utility grounds, what torture generates is the desire on the part of the victim that the torture stop. so it is demonstrably *not* a way to get information that goes beyond "make this stop." the bush people appear to have understood this much, which explains why in some cases torture was used in an effort to get corroboration for an obviously false story that they understood to be politically useful.

there are also legal restrictions on it's use. international law, national law. in other debates, you've adopted positions that indicate you're a security-oriented kinda guy--in the everyday sense that you expect folk to abide by the law and seem to have little patience with folk who don't. except in this case, that of using torture. it seems inconsistent.

the "humanitarian" line on killing people is that pain is worse than death past a certain point, that it is more wrong to inflict unnecessary pain (and if you know that torture produces only one kind of information, and that information is that the torture stop, then the pain inflicted IS unnecessary) willfully and outside of that cordoned=off space of collective psychosis that we call battle than it is to kill people. this is obviously a very christian way of thinking about it for better (a moral Problem with the inflicting of unnecessary pain) and worse (this life is cheap because there's another one to follow, so death isn't necessarily so bad).

so you say you're fine with torture--but i don't think it's true---nor do i understand how the logic actually works that enables you to be fine with it because i can't figure out a coherent grounds for the position.

I think that sentiment will have more weight coming from you, roach. Just for that I'm buying you a pint.

It's either wrong to kill people. Yes?

We don't want to kill people, but in the essense of war, it's okay to kill them. Otherwise, why not just make it a soccer match? or World Series of Poker? Or a chess match?

It's not a game, it's life or death stakes about how one is subjugated or not by another person or regime.

It's supposed to be ALWAYS wrong, but it's not, there's grey spots and areas where it's acceptable. I'm going with and have been, that someone will find that grey area where their moral code says that torture is fine. I'm not talking about gaining intel which you and others wish to keep putting this argument in front of. I've been stating that some will find it an acceptable position and action. It has in the past, and will in the future.

again, you may not believe it, but I am fine with it. It's something that happens not much different than warring and killing.

To put laws into place for the warring? Isn't that why they have military tribunals different than every day courts? If not why the difference? Because the moral code is different.

so then the rationale for torture is that it is a theater of cruelty.
on the same order as saturation bombing, say--it generates the impression that the opponent is willing to do anything---anything at all---in this context.
so it's a signal that we're leaving the ordinary dehumanization of battle and entering into a special zone of it.

i know that's not what you said: im trying to fit it into a space i can interpret.

something closer to your argument might be that unless one is a pacifist and opposes war altogether, torture is simply part of the deal.

you can make it that simple, but then it is too simple because I'm not a pacifist and neither are most.

i'm just trying to figure out the logic, so am thinking about the point of departure. everything else you say could be seen as an elaboration of the sentence, and all the nuances are in the elaboration--as is the case with almost any argument.

i'm don't buy it, but it's probably the closest to a coherent argument for torture i've seen in these threads.

but i want to be sure i understand it before i say anything else.

Or that, given the atrocities of war, it's going to happen anyway, so what the hell, might as well be for it? Is that roughly it, Cyn?

Like my fellow rb, I'm trying to get my head around your position, because from where I'm starting from it's entirely foreign. I'm clear there's something about it I'm not getting, and I'm clear I've got to get it before I can discuss it.

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Dare I ask your opinion on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

But to keep this in context, would you be fine with American forces intentionally targeting civilians? I mean, that's what terrorists do, right?

I don't see what's so cruel or unusual about it? And, again, the reason waterboarding isn't practiced in our criminal justice system is because there's no reason for it to be. I'm fairly sure that people aren't waterboarded willy-nilly. Indeed, they're waterboarded only when the situation necessitates (sp?) that they be waterboarded, and I'd guess this would be in situations where it's decided that the person might contain information which will save a great deal of American lives.

In war, you know where "nice guys" end up? Dead. If we don't play their game then we're weak and they'll continue to attack us. If we do, then we're just as bad as them. Well, I'd rather be just as bad as them and alive to see another day.

I don't really want to get into the whole "moral destruction of America" thing, as I believe that happened a long, long, long time ago.

But then it would have been too obvious.

I thought it was the fact that we've been inciting revolts and causing general instability in the area for our own economic goals (Mainly a safe access to oil).

I'm sorry, but this is entirely subjective. Some people might have no reaction to being waterboarded, but react negatively to sleep deprivation. One person might have no reaction to physical beatings, but another be driven insane by listening to the same song for hours on end. Where, exactly, would you draw the line in labeling which one of these things is torture and which isn't?

That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm trying to find out what constitutes torture and where you draw the line being torture? Because, following the guidelines on torture set forth by the U.N., then very nearly anything which involves subjecting someone to something against their will in order to obtain information could be construed as torture.

I'm not a doctor, but if I remember correctly killing someone causes permanent physical damage.
Again, not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure that causes serious physical damage.
Do you see Hollywood special effects people getting hauled in for burning down houses? No? That's probably because they have permission. If I were to burn down a friend's house with his or her permission, I'd probably call the city and see what the legality was. I suspect it would break clean air laws in the area, but if the fire department gave me the okay (and the local fire departments give Myth Busters the okay on some really crazy stuff all the time), I would not be arrested for arson.
I wouldn't, he's got history with that question. Maybe ask him about the use of white phosphorus or botulinum toxin, as they're illegal but still within the theater of war.

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Only if they have consent.

No, dude, haven't you been reading? It's NOT legal to waterboard "terrorists", no matter who you are.

It's illegal (under a UN Convention that per the rules of this kind of thread I can't cite and so I'll bastardize by paraphrasing) when done by a government or under direct military orders.

If an individual waterboards somebody else against their will without being ordered to do so by a military superior or the like, I'd think it's probably assault of some type. Plus you'd probably have to have kidnapped them or incapacitated them in some way to get them ON the waterboard, so likely more things you could be charged with there.

That's all assuming the "victim" is not consenting. If the "terrorist" volunteers to be waterboarded on mythbusters... well, they'd still be smart to get him to sign a release. I agree with you that Will stepping up to torture his friends in their garage sounds like a uniquely bad idea, but there wasn't anything criminal in it.