Waterboarding- the real deal
POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Friday, May 9, 2008 01:12
VIEWED: 11112
PAGE 15 of 23
Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:Quote:You ever see Back To The Future?
Originally posted by Geezer:
So Rue, what would you or SignyM do (to a suspected or confirmed terrorist who might have information you needed to save lives, for example) rather than torture?
And you call Finn cryptic?
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Quote:Van Halenisall
Originally posted by Geezer:
And you call Finn cryptic?
Less cryptic now?
Darth Vader from the planet Vulcanisall
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I've noticed that people who support torture always talk about extreme cases "the terrorist has a nuclear bomb and its going to detonate in 24...but we don't know where". Basically people watch too much tv. People aren't tortured because of those sort of issues. People are tortured because governments who support torture are ignorant, ill informed and vengeful.
Torture (and I include waterboarding) is an ineffectual method of obtaining reliable information. That's been known for some time. You get poor information (because if the victim is weak they'll do anything to stop it...that would be me BTW) or if they are strong and a true believer, they'll resist until death.
Regardless of whether you consider waterboarding torture, the current US administration supports torture, only via rendition they let someone else do their dirty work.
The US administration also knows how ineffectual and unnecessary it is. They support it because they are vengeful, because they are looking to create fear in their enemy and they flexing their (in their case superpower) muscle.
Same as it is for any other government that supports it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:Quote:This goes back to... if a cop shooting an unarmed civilian is useful in one case, should we make it LEGAL? In other words, if this action is useful for 1 in a million encounters between civvies and police should cops get an automatic "pass" on the other 999,999? How much harm would flow from legalizing free-fire on civvies versus how much good?
The problem with outright outlawing water-boarding and other coercive techniques is that there are instances in real life where they might prove useful.
I don't know what you're talking about, Cops shoot unarmed civilians all the time in the US. It's not illegal for a cop to shoot an unarmed person if he believes there is an imminent threat. A cop might not shoot you if you attacked him unarmed, but I'll guarantee you that if a 6'5" 250lb Hell's Angel comes at him unarmed he would use deadly force without hesitation. Just like the Cops have legal guidelines for when deadly force is justified, and soldiers have rules of engagement, Federal Agents should have rules for when coercive tactics can be used. If the President of the US is available to make the call then that's great, but there needs to be a system set up where it can be done quickly. Kwicko mentioned the Fisa Court, but that wouldn't work if all coercive methods were illegal, a court can't order an action that is illegal.
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Quote:MD, you am correct.
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
You get poor information (because if the victim is weak they'll do anything to stop it...that would be me BTW) or if they are strong and a true believer, they'll resist until death.
Or they could, y'know, REALLY NOT know anything key to a situation...
This thread is tortureisall
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kirkules:
I don't know what you're talking about, Cops shoot unarmed civilians all the time in the US.
Eh, Kirk, now I know why you aren't a representative for the U.S....Bad PRisall
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kirkules:
If the President of the US is available to make the call then that's great, but there needs to be a system set up where it can be done quickly.
The system can NEVER set it up so that torture is acceptable. Such systems lead to regimes like the Third Reich and Stalin's Russia, see?
Listen, I know the world is not perfect. Sometimes people need to make very difficult decisions between the lesser of two evils, between the suffering of one person vs. the suffering of many people. I get that.
But those decisions have to be made by the INDIVIDUALS who implement them. ALWAYS. Individuals who believe the cost to them is worth the benefit to society. Individuals who are willing to sacrifice their own moral wellbeing. Individuals who afterwards have to face the consequences of an immoral action.
If someone captured my children, I might choose to torture the perpetrator to save them. But it has to be MY decision, not anyone else's. And I must be willing to face the consequences of my decision. The decision has to be WORTH the consequences.
Let me spell it out.
1. Torture should never be free and must never be committed with impunity. The torturer must suffer consequences, and the torture must be worth suffering those consequences. Maybe a jury will be lenient if lots of lives are saved, but the torturer must never believe he won't be prosecuted.
2. Torture must never be decided or ordered by someone who is not doing the torture. "I was just following orders" is too easy an excuse to not take responsibility for immoral orders. Responsibility for torture has to be unequivocal: it is the choice of the torturer.
3. Torture must never be sanctioned by any society towards any target. Dehumanization of certain groups making torture acceptable is the first step towards genocide or mass homicide. The histories of Germany, Russia, Cambodia, China, and Rwanda support this assertion, just to name a few.
4. Torture is notoriously unreliable, as Masonsdaughter pointed out. The Jack Bauer scenario caters more towards our vengeful and hateful needs than to our need for intelligence. Torture normally is lazy and irrational man's excuse for doing the hard work of real intelligence.
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
AURaptor: You lose every time, that's why you have to declare yourself the winner, because no one else will.
Wow, you stumble across one snarky line which, for you, passes off as 'witty' and you keep using it, over and over, huh? I simply am pointing it out to YOU because you keep posting the same drivel over and over again, under the delusion that you're "winning" something, when in fact, you aren't.
I find it funny that it's important for you to imagine me as some figment of your imagination. Says a lot about you, now don't it ?
It is not those who use the term "Islamo-Fascism" who are sullying the name of Islam; it is the Islamo-Fascists. - Dennis Prager
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:Quote:MD, you am correct.
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
You get poor information (because if the victim is weak they'll do anything to stop it...that would be me BTW) or if they are strong and a true believer, they'll resist until death.
Or they could, y'know, REALLY NOT know anything key to a situation...
This thread is tortureisall
You would think that an upper level leader in Al Qaeda would be a "true believer" and "resist until death" if anyone would. But it turns out they actually started crying like little girls when coercive techniques were used on them, and the info they spilled saved lives.
Three Were Waterboarded, CIA Chief Confirms
By Greg Miller
The Los Angeles Times
Wednesday 06 February 2008
"He also testified that only three detainees were ever subjected to the method: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks; Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda operative tied to the Sept. 11 plot; and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi suspected of playing a key role in the bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000.
Appearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Hayden said the CIA had ceased using waterboarding nearly five years ago, but he made a vigorous case for preserving the agency's ability to use "enhanced" interrogation techniques.
Information provided by two of the waterboarded prisoners, Mohammed and Zubaydah, accounted for 25% of the human intelligence reports circulated by the CIA on Al Qaeda in the five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Hayden said."
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:Quote:
Originally posted by Kirkules:
I don't know what you're talking about, Cops shoot unarmed civilians all the time in the US.
Bad PRisall
That does really sound bad doesn't it. Maybe it will keep a few from coming over and spending their overpriced Euros on cheap American products. The sale on all things American will be ending soon so you better shop now. Just don't make any quick movements around US police officers.
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