Legal Precedents Regarding Waterboarding

[Article 15]

Tell me in what way, my hypothetical operated outside the realm of how interrogations were conducted?

I never said it did nor did I say that it had to.

 

[jreeves]

Tell me in what way, my hypothetical operated outside the realm of how interrogations were conducted?

I never said it did nor did I say that it had to.

That is what I am saying though, you are asking me a hypothetical that was outside the realm of how the interrogations were conducted. If I don't have credible indicators...etc... then I wouldn't have been waterboarded correct?

 

[Article 15]

Tell me in what way, my hypothetical operated outside the realm of how interrogations were conducted?

I never said it did nor did I say that it had to.

That is what I am saying though, you are asking me a hypothetical that was outside the realm of how the interrogations were conducted. If I don't have credible indicators...etc... then I wouldn't have been waterboarded correct?

Not necessarily. You are putting too much trust in what the gov't is telling you.

 

[jreeves]

I never said it did nor did I say that it had to.

That is what I am saying though, you are asking me a hypothetical that was outside the realm of how the interrogations were conducted. If I don't have credible indicators...etc... then I wouldn't have been waterboarded correct?

Not necessarily. You are putting too much trust in what the gov't is telling you.

Even though it was Obama who released the information? It wasn't like the CIA or the DOJ released this information.

 

[Article 15]

That is what I am saying though, you are asking me a hypothetical that was outside the realm of how the interrogations were conducted. If I don't have credible indicators...etc... then I wouldn't have been waterboarded correct?

Not necessarily. You are putting too much trust in what the gov't is telling you.

Even though it was Obama who released the information? It wasn't like the CIA or the DOJ released this information.

Yes, even though it was Obama that released the information.

 

[jreeves]

Not necessarily. You are putting too much trust in what the gov't is telling you.

Even though it was Obama who released the information? It wasn't like the CIA or the DOJ released this information.

Yes, even though it was Obama that released the information.

This was secret information and the CIA and DOJ never thought the public would see it.

 

[Article 15]

Even though it was Obama who released the information? It wasn't like the CIA or the DOJ released this information.

Yes, even though it was Obama that released the information.

This was secret information and the CIA and DOJ never thought the public would see it.

So?

You are doing an awful lot of dancing to avoid answering two questions ...

 

[jreeves]

Yes, even though it was Obama that released the information.

This was secret information and the CIA and DOJ never thought the public would see it.

So?

You are doing an awful lot of dancing to avoid answering two questions ...

No dancing just dealing with reality.

 

[Article 15]

This was secret information and the CIA and DOJ never thought the public would see it.

So?

You are doing an awful lot of dancing to avoid answering two questions ...

No dancing just dealing with reality.

Whatever, dude, I'm done dealing with you. You clearly aren't brave enough to answer two very straight forward questions.

Feel free to bump this when you have a direct answer to these questions:

Let's say you are being interrogated and do not have information about an attack that is going to kill thousands and there is in fact no such attack coming. Despite this, the interrogator waterboards you repeatedly insisting that you divulge this information that you do not have.

1.) Would you consider yourself in the process of being tortured?

2.) Would you say whatever you thought you could, including lying or making something up, in hopes that it would get the waterboarding to stop?

If you do, I will gladly continue this converstation later on this afternoon when I wake up.

 

[jreeves]

So?

You are doing an awful lot of dancing to avoid answering two questions ...

No dancing just dealing with reality.

Whatever, dude, I'm done dealing with you. You clearly aren't brave enough to answer two very straight forward questions.

Feel free to bump this when you have a direct answer to these questions:

Let's say you are being interrogated and do not have information about an attack that is going to kill thousands and there is in fact no such attack coming. Despite this, the interrogator waterboards you repeatedly insisting that you divulge this information that you do not have.

1.) Would you consider yourself in the process of being tortured?

2.) Would you say whatever you thought you could, including lying or making something up, in hopes that it would get the waterboarding to stop?

If you do, I will gladly continue this converstation later on this afternoon when I wake up.

I already answered these questions based on reality not in some quasi-reality world.

 

[Yurt]

i have no doubt there are people in our current judicial system who plead to a lesser crime when accused of a much more heinous crime(s) because of the odds that a jury might convict, despite that person being entirely innocent.

is that torture?

 

[Iriemon]

But under the criteria that the CIA used I wouldn't have been interrogated using waterboarding because I am not a high value detainee with credible indicators that would prevent, disrupt or deny an attack. Or in other words I'm not a terrorist claiming I have information of an attack.

Not good enough.

Answer the questions, please.

I just did answer your questions in the context that waterboarding was used. Lets deal with how waterboarding was used in actuality not how it could have been used hypothetically. It was used on high level terrorist with credible indicators that enhanced interrogations would prevent, disrupt or deny an attack. KSM basically told them I have information but

Non-answer.

 

[Iriemon]

No dancing just dealing with reality.

Whatever, dude, I'm done dealing with you. You clearly aren't brave enough to answer two very straight forward questions.

Feel free to bump this when you have a direct answer to these questions:

Let's say you are being interrogated and do not have information about an attack that is going to kill thousands and there is in fact no such attack coming. Despite this, the interrogator waterboards you repeatedly insisting that you divulge this information that you do not have.

1.) Would you consider yourself in the process of being tortured?

2.) Would you say whatever you thought you could, including lying or making something up, in hopes that it would get the waterboarding to stop?

If you do, I will gladly continue this converstation later on this afternoon when I wake up.

I already answered these questions based on reality not in some quasi-reality world.

He asked you a simple, straightforward hypo as part of a discussion, same as you asked him.

The fact that you refused to answer is in itself an answer that you recognize your position is indefensible.

 

[Iriemon]

Assertion:

JFK authorized waterboarding in his adminstration...

Evidence:

Here you go...
Waterboarding Historically Controversial - washingtonpost.com
A CIA interrogation training manual declassified 12 years ago, "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation -- July 1963," outlined a procedure similar to waterboarding. Subjects were suspended in tanks of water wearing blackout masks that allowed for breathing. Within hours, the subjects felt tension and so-called environmental anxiety. "Providing relief for growing discomfort, the questioner assumes a benevolent role," the manual states.

Nothing in that article supports your assertion that JFK authorized waterboarding, which we can now assume is something you made up to support your position, unless you have some evidence to support it.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Another opinionated rant that only projects your own worldview and nothing more.

ROFL... My world view is the only world view I give a crap about... you don't have to agree with it... you just have to know that you've no means to contest it.

Your problem is that you think your world view is the be all end all truth so no matter what I say you are going to take it as incorrect, not valid, a concession of defeat, or whatever else blusters off of your keyboard.

Yes... I'm sure that this is unique to me... and that you're so convinced that your world view is the correct view, is, well, COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...

Here's the thing... I set my world view, OKA: my perspective, against those of others, not unlike yourself, who are interested in the contest.

My mind is wide open... and despite the commonly held belief that my views are inflexible and dogmatic... I change my view as the evidence comes along which provides for it to change and my perspective changes as experience provides for such.

What I do not change and what IS inflexible are the bed-rock principles on which my perspective rests and which are used in the calculations which determine how such evidence is considered.

Which is where you're having difficulty...

For instance, this whole 'context' thing... and how it relates to 'torture'...

As I've repeatedly pointed out, they whose name will no-longer-be mentioned... used the word "TORTURE" to describe reading my posts... she also used that same word to describe the gruesome, unspeakable treatment which the Imperial Japanese used to torment and murder hundreds of thousands of people, throughout the Western Pacific... and of course the SAME word was used to describe the coersive interrogation of Mass Murderers being detained for interrogation by the US military... she also demands that the SAME word is the underlying concept which is determined to be ILLEGAL... across the board.

It's idiocy on parade...

The principle of context, requires that a relative concept must be set against it's context... or the relative circumstances surrounding that usage; where the word is used to describe the frustration one experiences in debate... or a sales meeting, or training seminar... it is clearly an overstatement. Clearly, no serious person would declare that sustained exposure to the meeting which is required for the free weekend in Disneyworld... is equitable with having one's arms ripped out of their shoulder sockets... which is what the word 'torture' means, or the context in which it is used when one discusses the treatment of prisoners held by the Imperial Japanese...

Thus where that context is used...; where one CITES EVIDENCE, SUCH AS THE TRIALS OF IMPERIAL JAPANESE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS AND THE PRISON SENTENCES WHICH WERE ADVANCED IN THE WAKE OF WW2 FOR THOSE JAPANESE SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS KNOWN TO HAVE ENGAGED IN SUCH PRACTICES... one establishes that CONTEXT... and where one establishes that context and uses THAT CONTEXT TO PROJECT THAT WHOLE CONCEPT ONTO US INTERROGATION OF MASS MURDERERS... it is just as much an overstatement; just as ludicrous and just as intellectually unsound... and just as logically invalid as using that word to describe a 'required get together to demonstrate the opportunity of time-sharing real estate 'investments.'

Now... let's take it from the other side... (look at it from another perspective, which I've repeatedly advanced) I've established that stress inducement, as described in many US Interrogation techniques is perfectly suited to the task of culling information FROM KNOWN MASS MURDERERS WHO ARE PRESENTLY PLOTTING TO ATTACK ONE'S NATION AND MURDER MASSIVE NUMBER OF INNOCENT CITIZENS...

But with that said... those SAME techniques, if practiced on one's neighbor; who happened to be seen exiting one's garage with one's weed-eater; and who failed to return it... and they did so past the expiration date of ones' LAST NERVE... which resulted in one knocking one's neighbor on his gord, dragging said neighbor into the basement and implementing these techniques... so as to assertain the location of one's weed whacker... WHICH ONE WOULD ASSERTAIN in short order...

But, in THAT CONTEXT... THIS WOULD BE TORTURE... THIS would most decidely be ILLEGAL... and morally wrong on every freakin' level.

As with the scenario wherein the Sheriff's deputy is hauling down the road at 110mph... on a road posted for the maximum LEGAL Speed to be 55mph... IN THE CONTEXT OF THE DEPUTY'S JOB... HIS MISSION, HIS RESPONSIBILITIES... HE is NOT breaking the law, he is not violating a moral imperative, because the CONTEXT OF HIS FUNCTION IS WHOLLY DISTINCT FROM THE CONTEXT of a citizen using that road for general purpose of traveling from point A to pt B.

There is no "contesting" your view because you don't want to hear it...

False... There is no contesting my position because the principles on which my position rests are immutable... bed-rock principles.

So please, don't confuse my choice not to get into full head on debate with you as the "inability to contest" your views, I just see it as a complete waste of my time because you live in a world of your own ...

I wouldn't dream of it... Your inability to mount a valid contest is in your inability to recognize bed-rock principles and apply them in the reasoning which you use in the debate...

I instead, prefer to sit back and poke or pot shot at various moronic statements you make when it tickles my fancy because it's ammusing to see just how ridiculous you will get when someone points out that you are talking out of your ass.

Yes... I understand youer perspective... and it's what makes your posts so hysterical... (in several contexts and on so many levels...) You feel that you're poking fun and taking pot shots, when in reality your simply exposing yourself as an addle-minded fool. It's HYSTERICAL!

But hey... what leftist doesn't?

When someone, such as youself of she-whose-name-willnot-be spoken, declares that I am 'talking out my ass', that assertion must be set against the basis within their argument which advances that conclusion; sadly, for you gals, there's not a single instance where such an assertion has remained standing against the test of your stated argument... the basis of which are to this point found to be 100% of the time... BASELESS... having been created in the absence of an intellectually sound, logically valid calculation... they're simply the flaccid retorts born of impotent rage. And they are just as cute as they can be...

But just so we are clear:

Oh good.. Clarity is alway nice... yet it so rarely works well for you people... But let's see how it goes this time...

On this issue, like nearly every other, we differ. I am against state sanctioned torturing of people in an effort to gain intelligence, I include waterboarding within that definition. I believe waterboarding is torture because it is denying someone oxygen which in my view fits the mock execution definition of torture. We have prosecuted and convicted people for waterboarding in the past. I believe this practice goes directly against what we as a nation stand for and plays into our enemies hands. Am I right?

Oh my... Well I was afraid of that... You see, once again your argument wants to take ALL potential contexts of thw word 'torture' and boil them into one... Depriving someone of oxygen is a HORRIBLE thing to do someone whose 'borrowed' your weed-whacker...

But when it's being applied to someone that is known to be PLANNING TO MURDER MASSIVE NUMBERS OF INNOCENT HUMAN BEINGS... TOWARDS THE END OF CULLING INFORMATION WHICH COULD LIKELY PREVENT THAT ATTACK... not so much.

You see, those individuals soundly DESERVE TO BE EXECUTED... they will inevitably BE executed... and were they still walking amongst the general population, any human being which comes to understand who they are and what they're doing, is authorized to execute them on the spot... So... while what such is inappropriate for someone whose holding an appliance which doesn't belong to them... it's perfectly appropriate for your threats to the very fabric of civilization...

Context... its a biggy... spend some time considering it.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Let's say you are being interrogated and do not have information about an attack that is going to kill thousands and there is in fact no such attack coming. Despite this, the interrogator waterboards you repeatedly insisting that you divulge this information that you do not have.

1.) Would you consider yourself in the process of being tortured?

2.) Would you say whatever you thought you could, including lying or making something up, in hopes that it would get the waterboarding to stop?

Again...

All we're looking at here is CONTEXT and the individual perspective which is born from the context and how it is being percieved...

Now having been interrogated and having little information to offer... and having been waterboarded, because I didn't have the information which was being sought... I was DAMN SURE that I was being tortured... But I was also DAMN SURE that I was being tortured when my knees began to bleed because I was being forced to kneel on them for 96 hours in a dankk, wet, cold HOLE IN THE GROUND...

Which is how I felt when my entire body was being lifted up by my wrists... which were tied behind my back at the time... and when my body was being lifted from the ground by a narrow wire, wrapped around my ankles... and on and on...

I still believe that today... 'cause I flat WAS being tortured...

CONTEXT>>> Of course, I hadn't done a damn thing wrong... I didn't have any information which was necessary to save massive numbers of innocent lives... I was just a Recon Marine which was engaged in yet another level of training, in a long string of levels where the general theme of each, with a few exceptions, was they involved a lot of Stress and a TON of PAIN...

Now did any of that described above hurt more than the time I walked 20 miles with no skin on the bottom of my feet?

Not even close... and could it be argued that THAT was torutre? HELL YES... but the CONTEXT THERE; was a monsoon was sitting over Okinawa and we'd been in the field in pouring rain for two weeks, a week and 6 1/2 days longer than the dry socks and boots held out; and there were no choppers flying to carry our wet asses out of the NTA... and the clay roads had turned into orange rivers and the TRUCKS wouldn't roll... so we humped our asses back to Onna Point... 30 freakin miles down the road. Torture? Yeah... Necessary? Most definitely... ILLEGAL?

ROFLMNAO... Get serious...

The point here is that THE CONTEXT OF WHO YOU ARE... WHAT YOU'VE DONE... WHY YOU'RE BEING INTERROGATED DETERMINES THE LEVEL OF STRESS WHICH WILL JUSTIFIABLY BE USED TO INDUCE YOUR COOPERATION.

I would ask you Art... to explain SPECIFICALLY, what it is that you find so damn difficult to understand about this.

PLEASE... What, pray tell, is so complex, about the simple reality that the level of stress which is suitable to cull information from a MASS MURDERER... which threatens to rip the very fabric of civilization <<< CONTEXT HERE >>>>but is wholly unsuitable to cull information as to the location of your weed whacker, from your neighbor?

You want to equate the CIRCUMSTANCES wherein the CONTEXT OF THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES ARE INCOMPARABLE... You want to set a hard and fast rule, which precludes treating one any different from how one would treat the next... completely dismiss the reality that human lives of the INNOCENT VARIETY are on the line... You want to defend the forfieted human rights of a MASS MURDERER... who is not only guilty of mass murder in the PAST... but who is associated with people who are PRESENTLY PLOTTING TO MURDER IN MASS in the IMMINENT FUTURE!... and you want to prevent the most effective means of culling information from these people when TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE; when there is good reason to believe that THE ATTACK IS IMMINENT... WHEN WE DON'T HAVE THE LUXURY TO LET THE REALLY SMART GUYS TRICK THEM INTO TELLING US...

It's not reasonable Art...

Those people who are at risk of being attacked and who will be maimed and/or killed THEY HAVE RIGHTS TO... and THEY HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING WHICH JUSTIFIES THEIR BEING MAIMED... and if you, or your children or you siblings, parents, aunts, uncles... or the guys you play ball with were amongst those being threatened... you wouldn't be in here spreading all this faux indignation... and if God-forbid you ever suffer the consequences wherein someone COULD have stressed some terrorists for the information which would have prevented you from having your right to life, or that of your children, friends and family stripped away... but they DIDN'T... because they felt that inducing stress was torture, across the board... without regard to context...

I suspect you'd feel, a LOT, betrayed... knowing that it COULD have been prevented, but that it was NOT...

 

[Iriemon]

... As I've repeatedly pointed out, they whose name will no-longer-be mentioned...

I've achieved Voldemort status!

I'm going to kill you, Harry Publius. I'm going to destroy you. ... After tonight, no one will ever again question my power. ... After tonight if they speak of you, they'll only speak of how you begged for death. And how I being a merciful Lord... obliged.

Heh heh

 

[Article 15]

I don't find anything difficult in your position to understand. You believe that sometimes torture is okay when the end justifies the means and that is should be legal. You also seem to believe that because our torture methods are not as bad as some of those used by others that we are somehow being moral about it. I get it and I still disagree. I think it makes us no better than our enemies. I am not willing to give the state that kind of authority. I think it should be illegal and if someone breaks that law then they should find themselves in court answering for their actions. Maybe they will have a "24" scenario story and the court will go lenient on them ... maybe the POTUS will commute their sentence or pardon them if they were under some extraordinary circumstances and the end did in fact justify the means.. Maybe not. Maybe there was no "24" scenario and they were just probing for information and using torture to do so. In that case there is no end to justify the means, in that case the court probably wont show leniency, and the POTUS wont make that call.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

I don't find anything difficult in your position to understand. You believe that sometimes torture is okay when the end justifies the means and that is should be legal.

You also seem to believe that because our torture methods are not as bad as some of those used by others that we are somehow being moral about it.

I get it and I still disagree. I think it makes us no better than our enemies.

Ahh... well sure.. You've just stated that stressing someone who is overtly enaged in mass murder, for the purposes of PREVENTING MASS MURDER is the moral equivilent OF Mass Murder...

You're an imbecile... and most decidedly: part of the problem.

 

[Article 15]

I don't find anything difficult in your position to understand. You believe that sometimes torture is okay when the end justifies the means and that is should be legal.

You also seem to believe that because our torture methods are not as bad as some of those used by others that we are somehow being moral about it.

I get it and I still disagree. I think it makes us no better than our enemies.

Ahh... well sure.. You've just stated that stressing someone who is overtly enaged in mass murder, for the purposes of PREVENTING MASS MURDER is the moral equivilent OF Mass Murder...

I think using torture is sinking to their level.

You're an imbecile... and most decidedly: part of the problem.

In your opinion.