bush's new book getting him into trouble (admitting to waterboarding)

[Saikron]

Amnesty International can go **** themselves. The Waterboarding stopped terror attacks. Works for me.

not that you will understand many of the words, but try this:

Consequentialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rather than read some wiki shit, I think I'll go with what one of the victims from the 7/7 bombings said on the subject of waterboarding. He said, basically, if waterboarding could have stopped his wife dying in that horror, he sees no reason why not.

I understand why people dislike it, but the facts are that it worked. And it continues to work. You don't win against extremists by being nice. You win by using whatever mean necessary to destroy them.

Waterboarding would not have stopped 9/11, dunce. Since you don't read stuff you also wouldn't have heard of the piles of evidence, some written by interrogators and not people desperately trying to protect Bush & friends, that waterboarding is actually less effective than traditional means of interrogation.

A true story is that one of our most important prisoners, Abu Jandal, divulged some of the most important information we have against al-Qaeda, not because we tortured him and destroyed the tapes, but instead, Abu Jandal, a diabetic, started talking after being offered sugar free cookies.

Also you wouldn't have read any of the cases of people being convicted and sentenced for waterboarding prisoners.

Torture doesn't help the US in any way. It only does harm to everybody including the US. This isn't a ******* episode of 24.

 

[Saikron]

Well I dont see him getting arrested or charged over it, so i guess it is legal. The day hes found guilty of it in front a jury of his peers is when you can call it illegal. Up until then its just something you dont like.

"...torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."

UN Convention Against Torture

So basically it bans you from even looking at someone cross-eyed. First of all the UN has no enforcement power, so they can go pound sand on this. Second, I'm not sure if this is even a treaty yet, or if the US has signed it.

It's against the Geneva convention, which we did sign. We have also charged Japanese war criminals with waterboarding as a war crime. In the 80s we also discovered a law enforcement officer waterboarded somebody and gave him 10 years in prison.

 

[Missourian]

You know, I hate obscenity, but all that comes to mind when I read this thead is...what a bunch of pussies.

 

[BlindBoo]

Well I dont see him getting arrested or charged over it, so i guess it is legal. The day hes found guilty of it in front a jury of his peers is when you can call it illegal. Up until then its just something you dont like.

"...torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."

UN Convention Against Torture

So basically it bans you from even looking at someone cross-eyed. First of all the UN has no enforcement power, so they can go pound sand on this. Second, I'm not sure if this is even a treaty yet, or if the US has signed it.

No you can look cross-eye if you want to.

The United States signed it on April 18, 1988. The United States became the 63d nation to sign the convention, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1984 and entered into force on June 26, 1987, after it was ratified by 20 nations.

 

[martybegan]

"...torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."

UN Convention Against Torture

So basically it bans you from even looking at someone cross-eyed. First of all the UN has no enforcement power, so they can go pound sand on this. Second, I'm not sure if this is even a treaty yet, or if the US has signed it.

It's against the Geneva convention, which we did sign. We have also charged Japanese war criminals with waterboarding as a war crime. In the 80s we also discovered a law enforcement officer waterboarded somebody and gave him 10 years in prison.

The people captured aren't covered under the Geneva Convention, as they are not official members of a military force of a nation state, or a uniformed member of a resistance movement.

 

[martybegan]

"...torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."

UN Convention Against Torture

So basically it bans you from even looking at someone cross-eyed. First of all the UN has no enforcement power, so they can go pound sand on this. Second, I'm not sure if this is even a treaty yet, or if the US has signed it.

No you can look cross-eye if you want to.

The United States signed it on April 18, 1988. The United States became the 63d nation to sign the convention, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1984 and entered into force on June 26, 1987, after it was ratified by 20 nations.

Then we were idiots. And again, lets see them enforce it. The UN has the same power as a 24V beenie hat propeller.

I hate to derail this into a tangent, but how do all you humanists propose we get intelligence information out of people we capture without any coercive methods?

If you go with the blank statement of "we cant do it' then fine. Next time we get gibbed by some extremist asshats anyone who has the position of we cant use anything coercive to get information out of captured combatants loses every moral standing to question why the government didnt stop the attack. We will just capture and try whoever we manage to snag, regardless of the intel we can have. That way your weak ass conciences can be safe, and more of our people can die. At least you will be able to sleep better at night, as you seem to care more about criminal scum than our own citizens.

 

[rightwinger]

American soldiers also have valuable information. The US openly engaging in torture because the end justifies the means only gives our enemies the same rights to use it against our soldiers

 

[martybegan]

American soldiers also have valuable information. The US openly engaging in torture because the end justifies the means only gives our enemies the same rights to use it against our soldiers

Nope. Our soldiers ARE covered under Geneva, so any other force so covered would probably play ball.

Do you really think terrorist organizations give a rats ass what we do their personnel when we capture them. Thats the whole reason for Geneva. Do you also think our humane treatment of thier prisoners has any affect whatsoever on how they would treat any of our people they would capture?

Be real here.

 

[Saikron]

So basically it bans you from even looking at someone cross-eyed. First of all the UN has no enforcement power, so they can go pound sand on this. Second, I'm not sure if this is even a treaty yet, or if the US has signed it.

No you can look cross-eye if you want to.

The United States signed it on April 18, 1988. The United States became the 63d nation to sign the convention, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1984 and entered into force on June 26, 1987, after it was ratified by 20 nations.

Then we were idiots. And again, lets see them enforce it. The UN has the same power as a 24V beenie hat propeller.

I hate to derail this into a tangent, but how do all you humanists propose we get intelligence information out of people we capture without any coercive methods?

If you go with the blank statement of "we cant do it' then fine. Next time we get gibbed by some extremist asshats anyone who has the position of we cant use anything coercive to get information out of captured combatants loses every moral standing to question why the government didnt stop the attack. We will just capture and try whoever we manage to snag, regardless of the intel we can have. That way your weak ass conciences can be safe, and more of our people can die. At least you will be able to sleep better at night, as you seem to care more about criminal scum than our own citizens.

The prisoners that were tortured may not be protected by the GC, but that didn't stop Bush's guilty conscience from writing an executive order that exempted the CIA from Common Article 3. He also vetoed a bill that would ban waterboarding. Add this evidence to the fact that we sentenced a sheriff to 10 years in prison for waterboarding in 1983 and I think it's pretty incriminating.

I also posted the true story about Abu Jandal, one of our most important prisoners, who gave us some of the best information we have about al-Qaeda because we gave him... sugarless cookies.

Torture is not necessary and is not even helpful. Once you torture or even coerce somebody forcefully enough, they will just start telling you what you want to hear. People have confessed to worshiping Satan and being witches under torture. The idea that it is a useful tool is a MYTH and is something for TV and not reality.

That aside, don't you think it's a little alarming that the Justice Department and the President basically changed the law because they disagreed with it?

 

[barenakedislam]

We should make waterboarding SOP for ALL Muslim prisoners.

 

[Missourian]

American soldiers also have valuable information. The US openly engaging in torture because the end justifies the means only gives our enemies the same rights to use it against our soldiers

For this to be a valid argument, you'll need to supply an example of a war in which US POW's were NOT tortured.

Good luck with that.

Think they used a technique as gentle as waterboarding?

 

[WillowTree]

I'd rather investigate demonRats.

 

[rightwinger]

American soldiers also have valuable information. The US openly engaging in torture because the end justifies the means only gives our enemies the same rights to use it against our soldiers

For this to be a valid argument, you'll need to supply an example of a war in which US POW's were NOT tortured.

Good luck with that.

Think they used a technique as gentle as waterboarding?

By your standards, the US has no basis of complaining when our soldiers are tortured. It is a technique we openly use ourselves.

Both Germans and Japanese soldiers were prosecuted after the war for torturing allied prisoners (including waterboarding US soldiers)

Looks like we have lost that moral high ground

 

[barenakedislam]

American soldiers also have valuable information. The US openly engaging in torture because the end justifies the means only gives our enemies the same rights to use it against our soldiers

For this to be a valid argument, you'll need to supply an example of a war in which US POW's were NOT tortured.

Good luck with that.

Think they used a technique as gentle as waterboarding?

You're right about that. Here's some of the enemy's techniques:

 

[Sunni Man]

Posting a bunch of cartoons.

Doesn't mean that these things really happened.

 

[Missourian]

American soldiers also have valuable information. The US openly engaging in torture because the end justifies the means only gives our enemies the same rights to use it against our soldiers

For this to be a valid argument, you'll need to supply an example of a war in which US POW's were NOT tortured.

Good luck with that.

Think they used a technique as gentle as waterboarding?

By your standards, the US has no basis of complaining when our soldiers are tortured. It is a technique we openly use ourselves.

Both Germans and Japanese soldiers were prosecuted after the war for torturing allied prisoners (including waterboarding US soldiers)

Looks like we have lost that moral high ground

The question is, how many Innocent American bodies are you willing to stand atop to maintain that high ground?

 

[just me]

i believe in waterboarding. if you could ask the three thousand americans who died on 9-11 if they believe in waterboarding, of course they would. but, thats a cheep shot on my part. These people would and have done this to us. if you were about to be killed, you would do anything in your power to stay alive, waterboarding is just doing that anything ahead of time.

 

[barenakedislam]

Posting a bunch of cartoons.

Doesn't mean that these things really happened.

Apparently you've never been in the US military. Or were you in the military of your home Muslim country?

 

[just me]

i just picked up his book today, gonna jump on it tonight.

 

[Sunni Man]

Posting a bunch of cartoons.

Doesn't mean that these things really happened.

Apparently you've never been in the US military.

U.S. Army

11 Bravo

Vietnam Vet 70-71