Proof that waterboarding is Torture: Calling on DogBert, Article_15, & StrollingBones

PLYMCO_PILGRIM

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I'm talking to Dogbert, Article_15, and StrollingBones specifically here. If anyone else wants to chime in feel free but i'm truly interested in the opinion of those 3 forum members each for different reasons.

I'm willing to listen just present me with the proof, your reasoning, and anything else you can to convince me it is "torture". Please provide your definition of torture too so I can consider your thoughts in perspective.

Please dont deflect and ask me to prove how it is torture as i'm not 100% sure that it is. Just provide me with your reasoning so I can make up my mind on this subject.

And if anyone is curious as to why I asked those 3 it is basically because they feel strongly that it is (at least in their postings) and I have a lot of respect for them as individuals.

water-boarding-a-1.jpg


DEFINITION OF WATERBOARDING:

Waterboarding as it is currently described involves strapping a person to an inclined board, with his feet raised and his head lowered. The interrogators bind the person's arms and legs so he can't move at all, and they cover his face. In some descriptions, the person is gagged, and some sort of cloth covers his nose and mouth; in others, his face is wrapped in cellophane. The interrogator then repeatedly pours water onto the person's face. Depending on the exact setup, the water may or may not actually get into the person's mouth and nose; but the physical experience of being underneath a wave of water seems to be secondary to the psychological experience. The person's mind believes he is drowning, and his gag reflex kicks in as if he were choking on all that water falling on his face.

Definition of Torture:

StrollingBones' definition provided to me by her "Torture is defined under the federal criminal code as the intentional infliction of severe mental pain or suffering"
 
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i think it is torture. you repeatly cover a person's mouth and nose and keep them on the edge of suffication?

waterboarding.jpg



and you have to question the information gathered....if you have someone captured etc...how fresh is there info? will a person say anything or give you false information to stop the waterboarding?
i have been told ....a good questioner ...already knows the answer....with the technology of today...does it really have a purpose? i hear all this stuff about information gathering....yet we can see a car crosing a bridge in iraq...from space....

i do not understand why people fight calling it torture. mr mccain has spoken out against it. if you are willing to torture people, then call it what it is. dont get on a high horse and want to play semantics....withholding air from a human is simply torture.
 
Chase J. Nielsen, one of the U.S. airmen who flew in the Doolittle raid following the attack on Pearl Harbor, was subjected to waterboarding by his Japanese captors.[110] At their trial for war crimes following the war, he testified "Well, I was put on my back on the floor with my arms and legs stretched out, one guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped around my face and put across my face and water poured on. They poured water on this towel until I was almost unconscious from strangulation, then they would let up until I'd get my breath, then they'd start over again... I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death."

Waterboarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in the Vietnam War.[115] On January 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a controversial front-page photograph of two U.S soldiers and one South Vietnamese soldier participating in the waterboarding of a North Vietnamese POW near Da Nang.[116] The article described the practice as "fairly common".[116] The photograph led to the soldier being court-martialled by a U.S. military court within one month of its publication, and he was discharged from the army.[115][117] Another waterboarding photograph of the same scene, referred to as "water torture" in the caption, is also exhibited in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.

In 1983 Texas sheriff James Parker and three of his deputies were convicted for conspiring to force confessions. The complaint said they "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning".[110] The sheriff was sentenced to ten years in prison, and the deputies to four years.

Waterboarding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
waterboarding is not new...it has a long history...

Current and former CIA officers tell ABC News that they were trained to handcuff the prisoner and cover his face with cellophane to enhance the distress. According to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., himself a torture victim during the Vietnam War, the water board technique is a "very exquisite torture" that should be outlawed.

"Torture is defined under the federal criminal code as the intentional infliction of severe mental pain or suffering," said John Sifton, an attorney and researcher with the organization Human Rights Watch. "That would include water boarding."

*mal left out*

Water boarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in Vietnam 40 years ago. A photograph that appeared in The Washington Post of a U.S. soldier involved in water boarding a North Vietnamese prisoner in 1968 led to that soldier's severe punishment.

*some more mal left out*

Earlier in 1901, the United States had taken a similar stand against water boarding during the Spanish-American War when an Army major was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for water boarding an insurgent in the Philippines.

The CIA maintains its interrogation techniques are in legal guidance with the Justice Department. And current and former CIA officers tell ABC News there is a presidential finding, signed in 2002, by President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft approving the techniques, including water boarding.

History of an Interrogation Technique: Water Boarding - ABC News

as you can see historical evidence indicates that waterboarding is and has been considered torture.
 
I will put up the definition of waterboarding in the OP for you bones.

I also would like your definition of torture and I will edit it in (provided I get it fast enough so that the edit availibilty of my OP isn't removed).
 
This thread is thought provoking. I was just thinking about how prisoners of war in Vietnam were starved and subjected to the elements for no real purpose other than to break their spirits. Then I was trying to remember what condition hostages held in Iraq and Afghanistan looked like. They seem to have been treated pretty decent. Not counting the beheaded ones. Also, how many tapes did we make for Al Jazera of terrorists renouncing their actions?
 
This thread is thought provoking. I was just thinking about how prisoners of war in Vietnam were starved and subjected to the elements for no real purpose other than to break their spirits. Then I was trying to remember what condition hostages held in Iraq and Afghanistan looked like. They seem to have been treated pretty decent. Not counting the beheaded ones. Also, how many tapes did we make for Al Jazera of terrorists renouncing their actions?

Not sure I get your point?

That we should model our ethics after Al Jazera ?
 
This thread is thought provoking. I was just thinking about how prisoners of war in Vietnam were starved and subjected to the elements for no real purpose other than to break their spirits. Then I was trying to remember what condition hostages held in Iraq and Afghanistan looked like. They seem to have been treated pretty decent. Not counting the beheaded ones. Also, how many tapes did we make for Al Jazera of terrorists renouncing their actions?

Not sure I get your point?

That we should model our ethics after Al Jazera ?

Just some observations rightwinger. It is just strange to me that some prisoners held by terrorists seem to be treated very well and others are killed. Also, if we were torturing so much, it seems we would have some nifty tapes of people renouncing terrorism. What is the ethical standard for a tape like that? Wrong because done under pressure? Probably. If you are looking for an argument, I'm not headed there.
 
Is this The definition you are using bones "Torture is defined under the federal criminal code as the intentional infliction of severe mental pain or suffering"?
 
Is this The definition you are using bones "Torture is defined under the federal criminal code as the intentional infliction of severe mental pain or suffering"?

If I combine that definition with my description of the result of waterboarding: "The person's mind believes he is drowning, and his gag reflex kicks in as if he were choking on all that water falling on his face." we run into a problem.

The problem is we now have to define what is severe mental pain or suffering.

We know its intentional however, we would have to decide on if its severe. I need to be waterboarded now....hey article what you doing tommorrow :lol:?
 
Is this The definition you are using bones "Torture is defined under the federal criminal code as the intentional infliction of severe mental pain or suffering"?

The proponents of the view that "waterboarding is obviously and undeniably torture" insist on the use of a much more narrow defintion. The UN stamp of approval is the key.

I find it a bit strange that SOME people are still questioning and giving additional thought to the definition of torture. It's rather unclear how anybody can say either that waterboarding IS or that it ISN'T torture if they don't know what they even mean by the word "torture."

I will add this to be fair.

The definition of "torture" you seem to be quoting from the "federal criminal code" is obviously deficient.

Under that definition, I could painfully remove your fingers one by one and not be committing torture. Why? Because it says -- on its own terms -- that it is limited to "mental" pain or suffering. Clearly, a valid definition of "torture" would HAVE to also include the intentional infliction of PHYSICAL pain, don't ya think?
 
If it's not torture.

Then what is it ??

It could be lots of things. A tuna fish sandwich is not torture, for example, even if you find the taste of canned tuna to be horrifyingly awful.

Listening to a kid's music recital when it's awful may suck, but it aint torture.

Being subjected to physical pain -- even deliberately and with real intent -- may be quite painful yet not quite reach the level where the word "torture" accurately or validly applies.

If you go to have your broken finger "set" by the E.R. doctor, he might tell you "this is going to hurt." He then DOES the act (a deliberate and intentional act) knowing full well that it IS going to hurt like a son-of-pup. Has he inflicted torture on you?
 
Chase J. Nielsen, one of the U.S. airmen who flew in the Doolittle raid following the attack on Pearl Harbor, was subjected to waterboarding by his Japanese captors.[110] At their trial for war crimes following the war, he testified "Well, I was put on my back on the floor with my arms and legs stretched out, one guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped around my face and put across my face and water poured on. They poured water on this towel until I was almost unconscious from strangulation, then they would let up until I'd get my breath, then they'd start over again... I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death."

Waterboarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in the Vietnam War.[115] On January 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a controversial front-page photograph of two U.S soldiers and one South Vietnamese soldier participating in the waterboarding of a North Vietnamese POW near Da Nang.[116] The article described the practice as "fairly common".[116] The photograph led to the soldier being court-martialled by a U.S. military court within one month of its publication, and he was discharged from the army.[115][117] Another waterboarding photograph of the same scene, referred to as "water torture" in the caption, is also exhibited in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.

In 1983 Texas sheriff James Parker and three of his deputies were convicted for conspiring to force confessions. The complaint said they "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning".[110] The sheriff was sentenced to ten years in prison, and the deputies to four years.

Waterboarding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

C'mon now...you know that Nielson, those Vietnam era generals and Texas courts are a bunch of whiney, Commie pansies.

Now, go get some REAL proof!
 
This will either help or make it more difficult.

Torture:

1. the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty.
2. a method of inflicting such pain.
3. Often, tortures. the pain or suffering caused or undergone.
4. extreme anguish of body or mind; agony.
5. a cause of severe pain or anguish.

Excruciating:

1. extremely painful; causing intense suffering; unbearably distressing; torturing: an excruciating noise; excruciating pain.
2. exceedingly elaborate or intense; extreme: done with excruciating care.

Torture Definition | Definition of Torture at Dictionary.com
Excruciating Definition | Definition of Excruciating at Dictionary.com
 

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