Torture poll

[Iriemon]

Define torture

Excellent suggestion!

Merriam-Webster:
The infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure.

Interesting that torture can be considered pleasurable....

Intense tickling can also be considered torture, if the recipient is unwilling to participate (i.e., a child).

Expand your definition of torture, which includes "sadistic" and you get:

sad·ism (sā′diz′əm, sad′iz′əm)

1.the getting of sexual pleasure from dominating, mistreating, or hurting one's partner
2.the getting of pleasure from inflicting physical or psychological pain on another or others

If the US had previously prosecuted folks for war crimes for the torture excessive tickling, you'd have a point.

 

[jillian]

No he's not. He's got it exactly right. DO refresh our memories on who howled the loudest for Bush to "do something" after 9/11? Most people on the right I know were too busy cleaning their guns to go crying to "daddy" to "save us."

You lefties demand a perfect world from the right and your expectations are unrealistic. You can't tie people's hands behind their backs, throw them in the ring and expect them to win.

A surprising bunch of hooey....

I'll let all the people I know who were actually AT ground zero cleaning up the mess and looking for bodies that they didn't DO anything.

We didn't WANT Bush to invade a country that had nothing to freaking do with 9/11!

There was action that should have been had... Bush's pretend BS war of choice wasn't it.

Calling bullshit on you there. The war in Afghan was justified. From the start. We had a clear mission, with a clear objective that went to the heart of the cause of 9/11.

I never had a problem with Afghanistan. I think we dropped the ball there. I was talking about Iraq...

That said what I also, personally, wanted Bush to do, was implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission in terms of bolstering our own security... securing food, water, nuclear plants, waterways....

because ultimately, none of the high tech stuff or grand gestures matter if someone walks into Grand Central with a suitcase nuke.

 

[NOBama]

Waterboarding once is not torture.

Waterboarding 183 times is.

So what's the magic number where WBing IS torture?

 

[MaggieMae]

the enhanced interrogation techniques that were outlined in the New York times were NOT torture.

Interrogation Techniques - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com

The Ten techniques are as follows:

Sleep Deprivation: If keeping people awake was torture, then I should sue all my teachers who woke me up during class

Nudity: So now embarrassment is torture?

Dietary Manipulation: If the feeding of nutritionally complete tasteless meals is torture then every school cafeteria worker in the US would be in jail.

Abdominal Slap: My strength coach in High School used to drop medicine ball on our stomachs, I wished he would have just slapped my tummy with an open hand.

Attention Grasp: Oh my god, grabbing someone by the shirt is torture!

Facial Slap: Any guy can tell you a slap across the face, while it stings, is no big deal

Facial Hold: placing an open hand on either side of the face, making sure not to poke the person in the eye. Oh my that's just horrible!

Wall Standing: Yeah and? Shit we did more painful things at football practice

Water Dousing: Cold potable water from a hose splashed on the chest. Come on.

Stress Positions: Designed not to inflict pain by contorting or twisting joints but rather to inflict discomfort and muscle fatigue.

Cramped Confinement: Small dark place, limited to 2 hours. So take a nap.

Confinement with Insects: The person must be told a non stinging,non biting non toxic bug will be placed in the room with him. Those of you who live in New York and have ever had a cockroach in your room were being tortured all this time and you didn't even know it.

Walling: Being bounced of a flexible wall while being provided neck and back support to prevent whip lash. YAWN.

Now here's the big one

Water Boarding: Up to 40 seconds but more like 20 seconds of feeling like you're drowning. Not too bad compared to falling 80 stories amidst a mass of crumbling concrete, twisted hot steel and fire.

So two wrongs make a right? These disgusting animals treated us like pieces of garbage so it's ok for us to do the same to them? It's for us to water torture a man 183 times?

It's not. We're above this. Or I thought we were. I have absolutely no problem with interrogating the subjects, I don't care how uncomfortable they are, hell I would probably want the subject dead... but we have to be, we MUST be, a nation that stands as a beacon of light to the other nations... or then we're no better than Vietnam during the 1970s. No better than North Korea in the 1950s and no better than the Imperial Japanese during the 1930s and 1940s. Are there no other methods of interrogation where we can extract information from the "person?" Do we not have the most advanced law enforcement agencies in the world and we have absolutely NO idea how to extract information from these guys without "simulating drowning" nearly 200 times? I'm not talking about making them comfortable and meeting their needs - these "people" have no rights under the Geneva convention and I'm all for not giving them rights. They should be tried by our military, not our civilian system and then executed. To be held for all of this time... it makes no sense. Get the information - try them in a military court, then kill them. There's no way they're going to have effective operational intel 7 1/2 years after everything happened.

I agree. At one time there were over 600 held at Guantanamo. I think Americans wanted JUSTICE following the attacks of 911, not prison cells where potential terrorists could languish indefinitely. How many have we actually prosecuted? Two? Great Britain, Indonesia, Spain and Germany all hunt down, prosecute and imprison terrorists in their courts. Germany just put two more on trial yesterday. To me, there would be much more satisfaction seeing that done here.

Instead, the 911 mastermind still gets 3 squares and a soft bed at Gitmo. I want to see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed sitting in court in shackles and having a judge give him the death sentence following a lengthy trial where he would be forced to review the damage he and others like him inflicted and the hatred on the faces of people watching. For anyone who remembers their history, the Nuremberg trials brought about tremendous satisfaction in the minds of Americans and our allies.

 

[Steerpike]

We didn't WANT Bush to invade a country that had nothing to freaking do with 9/11!

The majority of Americans DID want it at the time, which is why the Dems in Congress were so complicit with it. They were going with the direction the wind was blowing at the moment.

 

[Steerpike]

Yes it would. The Bill of Rights are Rights afforded US citizens, not POWs, and the Constitution is the law of the US, not any other country.

While this is true, Gunny, the question of torture is also a moral issue. The Founders did not think that the rights were enjoy here were granted to us by our government. They felt that these rights were inalienable rights granted to us by our Creator. If that's the case, then at least the 'fundamental' rights we enjoy come from God to us by virtue of our humanity, and not from government to us by virtue of our citizenship.

And if that's the case, then we should apply those principles to all people who come under the control of our government.

 

[DavidS]

This poll is stupid.

Actually, it's one of the smarter things I've seen DavidS post. If we torture enemy combatants, it makes it more likely that torture will be used against our POWs.

Actually, I don't think it matters. We could give them 5-star hotel accomodations with the finest women America has to offer - they would still torture us.

I just want to know if you people think we're really better than they are... because in the end, we're not. We're the same. Actually, we're probably worse because we pretend we're better... but when the going gets tough, America will stoop down to any level and manipulate our court and legal system to make the things we do "legal."

At least in other countries what they do is legal and they don't need to manipulate the system to change it.

What can make America better than them? Not torturing them in the first place because it's illegal.

 

[Valerie]

Report: Abusive tactics used to seek Iraq-al Qaida link

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime.

The use of abusive interrogation — widely considered torture — as part of Bush's quest for a rationale to invade Iraq came to light as the Senate issued a major report tracing the origin of the abuses and President Barack Obama opened the door to prosecuting former U.S. officials for approving them.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and others who advocated the use of sleep deprivation, isolation and stress positions and waterboarding, which simulates drowning, insist that they were legal.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

It was during this period that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly — Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times in March 2003 — according to a newly released Justice Department document.

"There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder," he continued.

"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."

Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he said.

A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq.

"While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."

Excerpts from Burney's interview appeared in a full, declassified report on a two-year investigation into detainee abuse released on Tuesday by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., called Burney's statement "very significant."

"I think it's obvious that the administration was scrambling then to try to find a connection, a link (between al Qaida and Iraq)," Levin said in a conference call with reporters. "They made out links where they didn't exist."

Levin recalled Cheney's assertions that a senior Iraqi intelligence officer had met Mohammad Atta, the leader of the 9/11 hijackers, in the Czech Republic capital of Prague just months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The FBI and CIA found that no such meeting occurred.

Report: Abusive tactics used to seek Iraq-al Qaida link | McClatchy

 

[MaggieMae]

If the people of this country are willing to accept that their government has the right to torture suspects in their custody, and ignore international laws and treaties as well as domestic laws banning torture, there is no reason for any other nation, state, or faction to comply with these laws either.
In the future any American held captive outside of this country can be questioned by those claiming authority using any interrogation technique they deem necessary. The term “those in authority” will be interpreted as those claiming jurisdiction in the location at the time of the interrogation.

Meanwhile Muslim Terrorists routinely just MURDER captives, usually by beheading them. But hey that is JUST fine with you dumb asses. Remind me how international law applies to none State terrorists. I saw in the future to solve this problem we just announce all captured Terrorists will be tried for Treason by the Military ( not civilian) and hanged if convicted with only one appeal. I mean they belong to no country so we will just assume they are ours after capturing them, then since they were under arms at the time we will assume they were OUR military and since they were attacking us, TREASON applies.

There ya go, they get all the rights of any US Military personnel. Happy now?

So let me understand your point:

Because person A is immoral, then I have a right to be immoral.

Or--were you trying to make a logically based point?

I think his point was that he thinks the U.S. should capture/torture/kill all militant Islamic fundamentalists around the world. Fine. Where do we find them all? Perhaps another war could be started which would attract a few more to a centralized location?

Terrorism, where the terror involves cutting off heads, is a METHOD and it won't be stopped by just torturing or killing a few who do it.

 

[DavidS]

Can you define torture?

Perhaps I should broaden the question.

Do you feel it's okay for the countries we're fighting against, if they capture one of our soldiers, to use the same interrogation techniques they use against us? Sleep deprovation, waterboarding, etc.?

What country are we fighting with?

Official governments? None. What countries are our soldiers in? Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. With Pakistan and Syria our soldiers have only a temporary presence in them. If Syria captured one of our soldiers - and waterboarded them over 100 times, how many of you would be up in arms against what Syria was doing?

 

[MaggieMae]

Meanwhile Muslim Terrorists routinely just MURDER captives, usually by beheading them. But hey that is JUST fine with you dumb asses. Remind me how international law applies to none State terrorists. I saw in the future to solve this problem we just announce all captured Terrorists will be tried for Treason by the Military ( not civilian) and hanged if convicted with only one appeal. I mean they belong to no country so we will just assume they are ours after capturing them, then since they were under arms at the time we will assume they were OUR military and since they were attacking us, TREASON applies.

There ya go, they get all the rights of any US Military personnel. Happy now?

So let me understand your point:

Because person A is immoral, then I have a right to be immoral.

Or--were you trying to make a logically based point?

yeah, the death penalty would be wrong, too. as is imprisoning someone against his will. might as well fight to get KSM a trial in the US so he can be set free and blow up another skyscraper...oh wait, Obama's already doing that.

How is he doing that? Gitmo hasn't been boarded up yet, and no decision has been made on where to house the most extreme, known, terrorists like KSM. Stop projecting everything and start paying attention to those pesky things called FACTS.

 

[MaggieMae]

yeah, the death penalty would be wrong, too. as is imprisoning someone against his will. might as well fight to get KSM a trial in the US so he can be set free and blow up another skyscraper...oh wait, Obama's already doing that.

So I guess thats that. Tell us, why do we need justice again?
OH --To build a civilization. Without Justice, we would have Anarchy in the streets!! The whole point of founding a nation goes out the window if we no longer distinguish what is moral and immoral.

Now I am starting to sound like a preacher!! I dislike you elvis!!

I'm saying waterboarding does not equal what the victims of 911 went through. I could care less if you like me or not.

edit: If KSM is given a trial in the US, he will walk. the judge will throw the evidence out. I don't want Obama to push for a trial for this individual for that reason.

Oh puleeze...Even Zacarias Moussaoui, a loony bin Laden gofer, and one of the few even put on trial, is serving a life sentence.

 

[Gunny]

Yes it would. The Bill of Rights are Rights afforded US citizens, not POWs, and the Constitution is the law of the US, not any other country.

While this is true, Gunny, the question of torture is also a moral issue. The Founders did not think that the rights were enjoy here were granted to us by our government. They felt that these rights were inalienable rights granted to us by our Creator. If that's the case, then at least the 'fundamental' rights we enjoy come from God to us by virtue of our humanity, and not from government to us by virtue of our citizenship.

And if that's the case, then we should apply those principles to all people who come under the control of our government.

These same founders that burned out Tories and waged war against them and their families? Must have felt guilty after the fact.

I am not arguing in favor of torture. My initial statement stands as my opinion on the topic. "Torture" is a subjective term. IMO, it's being dishonestly used by the left for no more reason than to substantiate in their minds their partisan attacks.

Using their standards, I consider having to listen to all this baseless, partisan rhetoric to be torture. It's causing me undue pain in my ass.

 

[MaggieMae]

I know how the question is worded. But I know the art of war. We capture their guys and torture them for information, and they do the same. That's the ugliness of war, and one of the many reasons I don't support war in general.

But that wasn't the question. If the question had been "Should we have the right to torture foreign combatants if they do the same to our troops?" then maybe I would have some sympathy with your answer.

But the people we have tortured planned 9/11. I don't think waterboarding and the what the 9/11 victims went through are equivalent. I'm not saying torture is right, only that waterboarding is not equivalent to what these men did.

That's not the reason they were waterboarded. If you wanted an eye-for-an-eye, they would be dead already.

To me, the entire question remains whether or not torture practices like waterboarding are really effective in getting information. The experts say no. And we have only the word of whoever wrote these "reports" that actionable intelligence for future attacks was obtained by torture.

 

[Gunny]

This poll is stupid.

Actually, it's one of the smarter things I've seen DavidS post. If we torture enemy combatants, it makes it more likely that torture will be used against our POWs.

Actually, I don't think it matters. We could give them 5-star hotel accomodations with the finest women America has to offer - they would still torture us.

I just want to know if you people think we're really better than they are... because in the end, we're not. We're the same. Actually, we're probably worse because we pretend we're better... but when the going gets tough, America will stoop down to any level and manipulate our court and legal system to make the things we do "legal."

At least in other countries what they do is legal and they don't need to manipulate the system to change it.

What can make America better than them? Not torturing them in the first place because it's illegal.

I agreed right up to the last line because again, you have to define "torture," and it's as subjective as "right or wrong," "good and bad."

 

[WillowTree]

But that wasn't the question. If the question had been "Should we have the right to torture foreign combatants if they do the same to our troops?" then maybe I would have some sympathy with your answer.

But the people we have tortured planned 9/11. I don't think waterboarding and the what the 9/11 victims went through are equivalent. I'm not saying torture is right, only that waterboarding is not equivalent to what these men did.

That's not the reason they were waterboarded. If you wanted an eye-for-an-eye, they would be dead already.

To me, the entire question remains whether or not torture practices like waterboarding are really effective in getting information. The experts say no. And we have only the word of whoever wrote these "reports" that actionable intelligence for future attacks was obtained by torture.

Dishonest fuckery will get you nowhere!

 

[MaggieMae]

This poll is stupid.

why is it stupid? Because he is flipping it around on you?

Flipping it around? You mean playing a semantical game? Because that's all it amounts to.

Define "torture." Then define "terror." Every time you threat to punish your child or DO punish your child, it can be dishonestly misconstrued to say it's one, the other, or both. There is no honesty to the argument, and as is typical of most leftwing arguments/accusations, it then just becomes a matter of misconstruing words or using broad, general terms they can twist to mean whatever they want.

And for some reason, this board seems to have recently attracted quite the little group of leftwing, word-game players. Unfortunately for them, they aren't even good at it.

The simple facts are, we, as a Nation, do not torture. We as a nation have ALWAYS used coercion to obtain information, and the limit gets pushed every time. By every administration; regardless, which side of the aile they are on.

Until one of the blabbermouths on here can provide an instance where waterboarding was used AFTER it was ruled illegal in a US court, then this is just more leftwingnut, beating a dead horse to take the attention off their own fuckups bullshit.

Losers.

It's a DISCUSSION for God's sake. What would YOU like to talk about? Why don't YOU start a thread to discuss some OTHER fuckup by leftwingnuts. Maybe then it wouldn't get moved to the Flame Zone, which is probably where this one is destined since it was started by someone I'm sure you consider a flaming liberal.

 

[amrchaos]

To elvis

The reason I am starting to dislike you is because you are making me sound like a Preacher when I am an atheists......But then again, you could make little 4th graders say the same thing by your post so I really shouldn't take offense to it. SO I apologize.

 

[Gurdari]

Do you feel captured American troops should be subjected to torture if the enemy feels they have information on future military actions that would help them save the lives of their countrymen?

I think nobody should be tortured... (I voted 'No') however, I also beleive in equality, so if one nation can do it to another, then it's fair game when the roles are reversed.

 

[WillowTree]

the dishonest fuckery is when librals want you to believe that we have a choice in whether or not our soldiers get tortured.. as if the terrorists gave a shit how good we are! that's just plain dishonest F......