So basically, you want to include ANY statute, which discussed the use of water, must be described as 'water-boarding'... and as such this means its exactly what the US is subjecting Gitmo detainees to... And what's more that this singular and equitable function was concluded by various court to be a crime... which you feel necessarily requires that because water is being used with regard to prisoners; and because the courts have declared the use of water, in the sourced instances to be a crime, that such is ILLEGAL and therefore prohibited across the board and without exception.
ROFLMNAO... Whatta dumbass...
Sigh....indeed you are but even dumbass' deserve some kindness. Still is all the verbal diarrea really necessary in order to impart a few kernals of actual (dis)information?
Undigested nugget #1: ...So basically, you want to include ANY statute, which discussed the use of water...
Negative. I was very specific. Nice try though.
Let me help you out by reminding you of the legal definition of torture: "...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."
No where does it say "pain and suffering equal to or greater than....(insert torture scenario of choice)". Neither does it distinguish between individuals or groups - i.e. it's not torture if it's done to suspected terrorists but it is torture if it's done to innocent civilians.
But lets' set that intellectual trainwreck aside and move on to the clincher...
As has been stated ad nauseum... the issue is CONTEXT...
Your entire thesis is to determine that 'water-boarding is illegal'... thus prohibited across the board in any and all circumstances...
but here's the problem with that: "legal" is a function of law, law is a function of justice and for a law to be valid it must serve justice...
Water-boarding is a means to an end... where the end is a moral imperative which depends upon the timely delivery of critical information to serve that moral imperative; in this instance, one which water -boarding can serve without violating valid moral principle, water-boarding is a perfectly moral and exceptionally well suited means towards that end.
Now does that mean that the activity is morally justified in ANY situation? Of course not...
But where the moral imperative is to prevent the wholesale slaughter of innocent people, at the expense of inducing stress upon those who were directly or indirectly involved in the plotting and execution of that wholesale slaughter; then in THAT CASE and in THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES water-boarding is an acceptable advanced technique of interrogation; which has an extremely high efficacy rate.
That isn't law serving justice - that's a perversion of justice. Law is impartial. Law is the same whether the person is a terrorist, a six year old child, or a 48 year old wino. Justice is served through the law, not through the abuse of the law.
You can not serve justice through the creation of further injustice.
You state:...where the end is a moral imperative which depends upon the timely delivery of critical information to serve that moral imperative
And right there, your moral imperative breaks down because it illustrates the difference between policy (the policy of condoning torture) and reality (torture in practice). Except for hypothetical cases which seldom if ever occur in real life - you don't know for sure that the person you are torturing - has the information you want. As a result you could be torturing a hundred people before you find one that has the information. Therefor, you are willing to subject untold numbers of innocent people in the hopes you'll extract some necessary information and the slimmer hopes that it will be correct information. Your "justice" condones the abuse of innocents in order to serve it's "moral imperative".
You state: ...in this instance, one which water -boarding can serve without violating valid moral principle... as if that were a given. It isn't. You have not proven your assertion.
You'll of course cry that this a means/end argument... which it is... But as is the case with WAR ITSELF... it is a legal means to an end which, under most other circumstances the techniques used in war to accomplish the ends typical of war would be wholly inapproriate and unacceptable to most people; and likely illegal on many levels...
There is a difference between the legal sanctioning of torture and battlefield justice where information must be gotten quickly and expediently. Once a culture legally embraces torture for any reason, it opens the door for further abuses. It seldom stays within the narrow confines of "only the worst of the worst where we have thousands of lives in the balance ticking time bomb scenario". It becomes acceptable.
The point is that the CONTEXT of the circumstances in which water-boarding is applied determine whether or not it is torture... and the context in which the US is applying is does NOT provide that such is the case.
Uh...no. Context does not change definition, it only adds understanding. Reality is reality. Is robbery not robbery when the victim is rich and can afford losses? (context) No. Robbery is robbery. Is torture not torture because the victim is of a particular ethnic group/gender/nationality/enemy? No. The act and the moral consequences of the act, are the same regardless of context.
And this despite your tender feelings to the contrary...
Is it? To what specific logical fallacy are ya referring... as a general rule, when I recognize a fallacious argument, I identify the specific failure in reasoning... now I can't help but to notice that you've opted not to do so... and my experience tells me that when such is the case, that such is a function of stark ignorance...
First, I didn't post the comparison to rationalize the use of a milder form of torture...
I posted the comparison to induce you to admit that there are varying levels of treatment of prisoners...
You appear to be rationalizing milder forms of torture by renaming them "stress techniques" and you've done that multiple times in multiple posts. Make up your mind.
Which you and she-whose-name-will-not-be-spoken... have now done in spades...
By declaring that YOU ARE AWARE THAT THERE ARE VARYING DEGREES of the treatment of prisoners... you reduce your argument to meaningless...
Not at all. Simply admitting there are degrees does not invalidate the argument because it does not change the definition of torture. It only allows YOU to redefine it as a "stress technique". Nice try though.
As noted above you want to declare water-boarding as torture, conclude that torture is illegal and that because it's illegal, its a crime to water-board... thus water-boarding is prohibited... PERIOD.
Now that is an actual logical fallacy; specifically: ad hoc ergo propter hoc... which translates to 'with this therefore because of this...'
You are correct. That is a logical fallacy. However, your distortion is not the argument I made.
My argument:
Torture is illegal.
Waterboarding is defined in the U.S. law as torture.
Therefore waterboarding is illegal.
You can also look at it in the following way:
Torture is defined as: "...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..."
Waterboarding: "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."
Drowning (whether real or only percieved) does indeed induce severe suffering and pain.
"It seemed as if I was in a vice which was gradually being screwed up tight until it felt as if the sternum and spinal column must break...The "gulping" efforts became less frequent, and the pressure seems unbearable..."
The deliberate infliction of the sensations of drowning on a person would meet the legal definition of torture.
In the scenario wherein I described the Sherriff's deputy passing you at 110mph on a road posting a maximum speed of 55mph, I explained that even where the law provided no exception for law enforcement to exceed the limit, that such a law would not serve justice because it would unreasonably preclude the means of law enforcement to adequately respond to situations where human rights were being usurpedl; where innocent life was being threatened...
That where such a law existed, that law would not serve justice and it would be the duty of those who are pursuing a greater moral imperative to disregard that law.
Such would be the case here; where the US is a war with a vicious and determined enemy of secret origins and unknown composition...
No. Such would not be the case. There are
limits to exceptions. While a police officer can exceed the speed limit to apprehend someone, he can not recklessly endanger lives in the process or use disproportionate levels of force in apprehending someone.
There are limits.
whose SOLE tactic is the attack upon innocent People; an association of individuals who is not stopped, threaten the very fabric of society.
Thus, where they are captured, it is a function of the highest moral imperative to cull from them, all that can be learned about every facet of their organization, it's composition, capabilities, means of sustenance, intentions and so on; a moral imperative which far and away overrides the unpleasantness of the task of inducing their cooperation, as humanely as possible and still get the job done...
Hyperbole.
The reality is they are a collection of riff raff ranging from people just wanting a job (mercenary work pays when there is no other sources of income) to conscripts to revolutionaries to religious extremists to pathological nutcases. Take your pick.
But, there is no moral imperative.
And THAT is the nature of stress inducing coercive interrogation... and while you need to overstate the nature of such by referring to it as TORTURE; setting aside the well justified application being a function of the critical moral imperative... your means to sustain such a farce rides on the back of the demonstrable effectiveness of those interrogations and the lives which have not been lost, the economic impact which has not been realized due to the absence of a single attack on US soil since 9-11...
You can't make a claim on negatives....
ROFLÂ… Sis.. Of the few immutable truths of life which can be discerned by our speciesÂ… one of the most obvious is that in every respectÂ… I OWN YOU.
Your tactics are obvious; your talents indiscernible and your intellectual means rests well below the status of your talentsÂ… in short: YouÂ’re an imbecile of the lowest order.
In your dreams bubba...keep trying though
)
