Waterboard Yoo Too

[Swamp Fox]

If the gain was commercial, let's say (and I know this is ridiculous but I'm just trying to work through some half-arsed ideas) the torturer was extracting information from the tortured such as where he (the tortured) keeps his cash. Would that be morally right?

I know, I know - I'm not saying I have an answer or I know anything, just trying to work out a few ideas.

Commercial gain would be a big no.

 

[Swamp Fox]

What a horseshit response. You support torture? You support our troops being tortured? I guess there is nothing conservative that is morally wrong?

We legislate morality all the fuckking time. We call it murder and it is wrong.

I don't believe that we have now come to arguing that torture is right. Wow, thank you Bush for creating our new way of seeing the world.

Whether I support our troops being tortured or not is irrelavant. It happens whether I approve or not. It happens despite that wonderful treaty everyone keeps spewing happy thoughts about.

My philosophy on torture evolved a long time before George Bush ever came around. I feel that nothing should be off the table when it comes to the defense of my country and that to take something off the table is to weaken the defense of my country.

Douglas MacArthur once said, It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it. All too often, that has been the approach to war from Bush to Clinton to Carter. If you are going to attack someone, go for the throat and get it over with, don't fiddle **** around.

 

[rayboyusmc]

Remember, if you okay torturing our enemies, you are okaying torturing our own troops. The Geneva Convention wasn't a let's be nice agreement, it was put in place to deter torture of our own troops.

I remember a time when we thought the Red Chinese, North Vietnamese, and North Koreans were bastards for torturing our troops.

What the **** has happened to this country under this administration. Terrorists have always been out there. They always will. But now it's okay to sink to their ******* level and call it patriotism.

 

[Diuretic]

Commercial gain would be a big no.

I'm still working through this but I'll get back to the tone of the first examples.

Is torture permissible to save life? I want to say yes. But I want to qualify it. I want to throw in ideas like "last resort" and "only if it's likely to produce the information required to save life". So I'm not happy with my position, obviously.

I can dismiss torture as a routine process. For example, a prisoner is tortured to see what he or she knows, to get intel. That I have no problem in condemning.

 

[maineman]

Now you are comparing apples and oranges. This means you must have run out of your pitiful arguments and are looking to change the rules to extend your line of bullshit.

And having investigated child abuse cases, there are some of them that deserve to be tortured.

how is that apples and oranges"? when you devalue humanity and your own ethical base to the point where torturing someone is OK, where does it stop?


Today, having someone you know has knowledge about a terror attack that would kill thousands justifies torturing him.

Tomorrow, having five people who you are pretty sure have knowledge about a terror attack that might kill hundreds justifies torturing them.

The next day, having fifty people who might have some connection to a possible terrorist incident that would kill scores of people justifies torturing them.

The day after that, having a thousand people who look like they might know something about a possible terrorist incident that might kill ten people justifies torturing all of THEM.

The day after that, you got a guy in custody that you think might know something about some crime, torture him and find out.

It is like the joke about the man who walks up to a beautiful woman at a bar and says, "I realize this may be terribly bold of me, but I am an incredibly rich man who has worked his whole life amassing wealth, and now that I have it, I have no one to share it with. I just found out that I have an incurable disease and only have a year to live....If I gave you a million dollars, would you come and spend the next six months on my yacht sailing the mediterranean and be my lover? The woman said, ""Oh my god....how tragic! Yes, you lovely, sensitive man, Yes I will!" He then said, "Great! Will you go out into the alley and give me a quick blowjob for $20?" She said, "WHAT????What kind of woman do you think I AM????" He said, "We've already established that...now we're just haggling over the price!"

Once torture becomes something acceptable to your culture, then, it becomes acceptable to your culture. period.

I don't want to slide back down that slippery slope.

 

[rayboyusmc]

TORTURE (from Lat. torquere, to twist), the general name for innumerable modes of inflicting pain which have been from time to time devised by the perverted ingenuity of man, and especially for those employed in a legal aspect by the civilized nations of antiquity and of modern Europe. From this point of view torture was always inflicted for one of two purposes: (1) As a means of eliciting evidence from a witness or from an accused person either before or after condemnation; (2) as a part of the punishment. The second was the earlier use, its function as a means of evidence arising when rules were gradually formulated by the experience of legal experts.


Torture as a part of the punishment may be regarded as including every kind of bodily or mental pain beyond what is necessary for the safe custody of the offender (with or without enforced labour) or the destruction of his life - in the language of Bentham, an " afflictive " as opposed to a " simple " punishment. Thus the unnecessary sufferings endured in English prisons before the reforms of John Howard, the peine forte et dure, and the drawing and quartering in executions for treason, fall without any straining of terms under the category of torture. ..............

The opinions of the best lay authorities have been almost unanimously against the use of torture, even in a system where it was as completely established as it was in Roman law. " Tormeniia," says Cicero, 3 in words which it is almost impossible to translate satisfactorily, " gubernat dolor, regit quaesitor, flectit libido, corrumpit spes, infirmat metus, ut in tot rerum angustiis nihil veritati loci relinquatur." Seneca says bitterly, " it forces even the innocent to lie." St Augustine 4 recognizes the fallacy of torture. " If," says he, " the accused be innocent, he will undergo for an uncertain crime a certain punishment, and that not for having committed a crime, but because it is unknown whether he committed it."

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Torture

;k;k;k;k;k;

 

[Swamp Fox]

Remember, if you okay torturing our enemies, you are okaying torturing our own troops. The Geneva Convention wasn't a let's be nice agreement, it was put in place to deter torture of our own troops.

Wow, and it's worked so well. That's why John McCain can't raise his arms above his head.

I remember a time when we thought the Red Chinese, North Vietnamese, and North Koreans were bastards for torturing our troops.

I still think they are bastards for torturing our troops. And I think we should have strapped some of them to a board and seen if they could breathe underwater. Obviously, the Genvea Accords didn't mean shit to them.

What the **** has happened to this country under this administration. Terrorists have always been out there. They always will. But now it's okay to sink to their ******* level and call it patriotism.

It's time to fight fire with fire. The terrorists themselves have cited our lack of vigour as a reason to attack. If we had bombed the shit out of Iran in 1979, or turned Mogadishu into a parking lot after the fight with the Rangers, I guarantee you they would have thought long and hard before they launched 9/11.

 

[Swamp Fox]

;k;k;k;k;k;

I thought Marines were supposed to be tough, you, sir, are a *****.

 

[Swamp Fox]

how is that apples and oranges"? when you devalue humanity and your own ethical base to the point where torturing someone is OK, where does it stop?


Today, having someone you know has knowledge about a terror attack that would kill thousands justifies torturing him.

Tomorrow, having five people who you are pretty sure have knowledge about a terror attack that might kill hundreds justifies torturing them.

The next day, having fifty people who might have some connection to a possible terrorist incident that would kill scores of people justifies torturing them.

The day after that, having a thousand people who look like they might know something about a possible terrorist incident that might kill ten people justifies torturing all of THEM.

The day after that, you got a guy in custody that you think might know something about some crime, torture him and find out.

It is like the joke about the man who walks up to a beautiful woman at a bar and says, "I realize this may be terribly bold of me, but I am an incredibly rich man who has worked his whole life amassing wealth, and now that I have it, I have no one to share it with. I just found out that I have an incurable disease and only have a year to live....If I gave you a million dollars, would you come and spend the next six months on my yacht sailing the mediterranean and be my lover? The woman said, ""Oh my god....how tragic! Yes, you lovely, sensitive man, Yes I will!" He then said, "Great! Will you go out into the alley and give me a quick blowjob for $20?" She said, "WHAT????What kind of woman do you think I AM????" He said, "We've already established that...now we're just haggling over the price!"

Once torture becomes something acceptable to your culture, then, it becomes acceptable to your culture. period.

I don't want to slide back down that slippery slope.

Apples = military situations
Oranges = crime problems

See the difference now?

And I never said I would torture everyone, I have said it should be an available option for those that need it. Osama Bin Laden, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and others leap to mind.

 

[BrianH]

Remember, if you okay torturing our enemies, you are okaying torturing our own troops. The Geneva Convention wasn't a let's be nice agreement, it was put in place to deter torture of our own troops.

I remember a time when we thought the Red Chinese, North Vietnamese, and North Koreans were bastards for torturing our troops.

What the **** has happened to this country under this administration. Terrorists have always been out there. They always will. But now it's okay to sink to their ******* level and call it patriotism.

The Geneva conventions is a pitty party that nobody follows. The enemy really follows the Geneva convention by using our own planes to kill civilians....and beheading journalist because their western. Didn't they find two mutilated and booby-trapped bodies of U.S. soldiers in Iraq after the were captured.....they must not have attended the Geneva Convention.

It doesn't matter what any of us think about torchure. If we were in full blown out war with Canada (not saying that we would), they would torture our soldiers for info, and we would torture theirs. I wonder how many Germans were tortured in WWII, or how many U.S. troops were tortured by the Germans in WWII. So much for the Geneva Convention.

If all of us put smiles on our faces and did a happy dance that denounced Torture, our enemies would still torture U.S. troops. We put insurgents in a detention facility, let them pray when they need to, feed them, etc....(sure, maybe water-board them a little) And even turn them loose after a while. I havn't heard of any captured U.S. soldiers being found alive any time soon, or graciously returned.

I know I wouldn't want to be tortured, but the whole live and let live policy just doesn't work with the current situation. IN our current situation it's more like, capture, detain, put on trial, go to prison....WHen our soldiers are captured it's: Capture, beat-up, torture, video, kill.

 

[maineman]

Apples = military situations
Oranges = crime problems

See the difference now?

And I never said I would torture everyone, I have said it should be an available option for those that need it. Osama Bin Laden, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and others leap to mind.

torture is torture. when we, as Americans decide to torture, then we do... regardless of the purported nobility of the rationale. We are still torturing another human being, and when we do that to anyone, for whatever exigent circumstance, we have done it to someone, and doing it to the next someone will be incrementally easier each time.

 

[Gunny]

torture is torture. when we, as Americans decide to torture, then we do... regardless of the purported nobility of the rationale. We are still torturing another human being, and when we do that to anyone, for whatever exigent circumstance, we have done it to someone, and doing it to the next someone will be incrementally easier each time.

I disagree. The definition of torture depends on which side of the political aisle you're on.

 

[maineman]

I disagree. The definition of torture depends on which side of the political aisle you're on.

I would suggest that once we have slipped past either side's reasonable objective definition of it, we are on the slope.

 

[Gunny]

I would suggest that once we have slipped past either side's reasonable objective definition of it, we are on the slope.

I have yet to hear a reasonable, objective definition. By definition, ANY psychological or physical discomfort inflicted on a person can be called torture.

That isn't where the real argument lays. The real argument is ... does the benefit to the many outweigh the so-called rights of some scumbag that was plotting to do "the many" in? The people being defended here are barbaric and cruel.

And I buy that we have to hold ouselves above them or we are no better than them argument. That's idealistic ga-ga. We live in the real world. I have absolutely no problem with differentiating my moral beliefs; which, is what makes me "better than them," from using whatever tactics it takes to defeat them. MY moral beliefs work good on a good day. Allowing an enemy to exploit them as a weakness just gets people, probably even me, killed and prolongs conflict.

I wish you liberals were as compassionate and concerned with the lives of unborn children in this country, and maintaing Holier-than-thou morals as you are bending the eyelash of some scumbags who want to make us each and every one dead.

 

[Alpha1]

I have yet to hear a reasonable, objective definition. By definition, ANY psychological or physical discomfort inflicted on a person can be called torture.

That isn't where the real argument lays. The real argument is ... does the benefit to the many outweigh the so-called rights of some scumbag that was plotting to do "the many" in? The people being defended here are barbaric and cruel.

And I buy that we have to hold ouselves above them or we are no better than them argument. That's idealistic ga-ga. We live in the real world. I have absolutely no problem with differentiating my moral beliefs; which, is what makes me "better than them," from using whatever tactics it takes to defeat them. MY moral beliefs work good on a good day. Allowing an enemy to exploit them as a weakness just gets people, probably even me, killed and prolongs conflict.

I wish you liberals were as compassionate and concerned with the lives of unborn children in this country, and maintaing Holier-than-thou morals as you are bending the eyelash of some scumbags who want to make us each and every one dead.

"That isn't where the real argument lays. The real argument is ... does the benefit to the many outweigh the so-called rights of some scumbag that was plotting to do "the many" in? "

Only in the arena of taxation is this acceptable .....to the loony misfits of the left, i.e. ,....Dimocreeps.....

Tax the shit out of one RICH guy until he bleeds for the benefit of the many that will better be able to afford a flat screen 52" HDTV...or at the very least a top of the line cellphone .....
The benefits to the many poor, outweigh the discomfort of the few rich...

 

[Gunny]

"That isn't where the real argument lays. The real argument is ... does the benefit to the many outweigh the so-called rights of some scumbag that was plotting to do "the many" in? "

Only in the arena of taxation is this acceptable .....to the loony misfits of the left, i.e. ,....Dimocreeps.....

Tax the shit out of one RICH guy until he bleeds for the benefit of the many that will better be able to afford a flat screen 52" HDTV...or at the very least a top of the line cellphone .....
The benefits to the many poor, outweigh the discomfort of the few rich...

I understand your argument, but I think you're making it rather poorly. Making insulting generalizations isn't going to win you any converts.

The fact is, the US government, on BOTH sides of the aisle can't keep its hands out of our wallets. Perpetuation of the bureaucracy is first and foremost.

 

[Diuretic]

I have yet to hear a reasonable, objective definition. By definition, ANY psychological or physical discomfort inflicted on a person can be called torture.

That isn't where the real argument lays. The real argument is ... does the benefit to the many outweigh the so-called rights of some scumbag that was plotting to do "the many" in? The people being defended here are barbaric and cruel.

And I buy that we have to hold ouselves above them or we are no better than them argument. That's idealistic ga-ga. We live in the real world. I have absolutely no problem with differentiating my moral beliefs; which, is what makes me "better than them," from using whatever tactics it takes to defeat them. MY moral beliefs work good on a good day. Allowing an enemy to exploit them as a weakness just gets people, probably even me, killed and prolongs conflict.

I wish you liberals were as compassionate and concerned with the lives of unborn children in this country, and maintaing Holier-than-thou morals as you are bending the eyelash of some scumbags who want to make us each and every one dead.

For the purposes of this Convention, 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. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html

I reckon that's pretty fair, I added the bold bits.

Now the question is, is it ever justified? I think it is.

 

[Gunny]

http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html

I reckon that's pretty fair, I added the bold bits.

Now the question is, is it ever justified? I think it is.

The thing is "severe pain or suffering" is subjective.

I think mild forms of coersion are justified. Looking down through the history of actual torture, waterboarding is like comparing to milk -n- cookies to Jack Daniels and weed.

 

[rayboyusmc]

Now the question is, is it ever justified? I think it is.

Does that differ from it being policy as this administration has written? "Anything short of organ failure or death."

Also what about all the scumbags that were tortured in Gitmo and then set free when they couldn't find any thing they had done? How many have been released from Gitmo without charges to date?

LONDON -- More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but may have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers.

Since February, the Pentagon has notified about 85 inmates or their attorneys that they are eligible to leave after being cleared by military review panels. But only a handful have gone home, including a Moroccan and an Afghan who were released Tuesday. Eighty-two remain at Guantanamo and face indefinite waits as U.S. officials struggle to figure out when and where to deport them, and under what conditions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801145_pf.html

Is a suspected terrorist a terrorist and loses all rights as a suspect or do we have any duty to first prove he is a terrorist before we torture him?

It's okay to imprison you for years and torture you even if you didn't commit a crime because we think you could be a terrorist?

What they have effectively done is create lifelong enemies for US.

And torture is wrong legally or morally without any ******* dependence on your party affiliation. That is bullshit, and you know it.

 

[Diuretic]

The thing is "severe pain or suffering" is subjective.

I think mild forms of coersion are justified. Looking down through the history of actual torture, waterboarding is like comparing to milk -n- cookies to Jack Daniels and weed.

Yep, ever been to Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors? I remember looking through the penal/punishment section and there was this thing called the "Algerian Hook".