"In Defense of Waterboarding"

[sailaway21]

This is a much more serious issue than the ubiquitous "have you stopped beating your wife" type of questioning it's gotten so far. And it may be even a question we'll never adequately answer. There is even the possibility that a large number of the populace is willfully engaging in a head in the sand posture; do what you must, just don't tell me or involve me. Herewith, the best column I've yet seen on the issue as it currently stands. Please do not bother commenting without reading the article.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opini...rboarding.html

[sailingdog]

Defending the practice of waterboarding, based on the record of one individual, in this case a particularly heinous individual, makes little sense. The process of waterboarding is torture any way you look at it... and saying it is justified because of how criminal a person is... is just ridiculous.

Why should we lower ourselves to their level. We can succeed without compromising our morals and debasing ourselves.

[poltergeist]

I read the opinion you linked, and agree with Dog ... the opinion was interesting and lucid, but a rationalization on a grand scale.

But almost as interesting is the question of why, in the wee hours of Christmas Eve, the best way you can find to pass the time is post a defense of torture (and another post on Islam) in a forum not even REMOTELY connected with those issues.

How terribly sad!

[chucklesR]

If what it comes down to is I personally have to step up and torture someone to get information that will save lives, I will willing do so - even if it means I break the law and go to prison.
Animals like this need to be stopped, and yes, to do so I will descend to their level for the brief time I need to get information to stop them.

Now having said that, how do I determine that the person under interogation is in fact responsible for and knowledgeable of terrorist activities? I don't think that I'd want to live with myself if I descended to become a torturer and in fact tortured innocents.

[Giulietta]

I like SA, he's crazy...he only posts political posts...that I'm not interested, so I don't read most (mainly doesn't concerne me his political ideas, in fact none of your political ideas concern me)...I think he's nuts or has nothing to do....a man can only have so many orgasms in a day...he reaches his quota early in the morning, then proceeds to the political sites...if you know what I mean...

But this time it was funny, I thought he was talking about "waterboards" and in my mind I was seeing Surfboards, or wakeboards...

So I read the whole thing (he asked to), SA...go rent a movie...

You are defenately crazy

[Rockter]

Everyone detests the idea of torture, but, before anyone says that it never works, well, remember Guy Fawkes.

If ever we are threatened... some biological weapon or nuclear weapon in downtown Manhattan with a timer on it and you don't know where, let no one be pious enough to say they would not torture to get the information.

I hate torture, everyone detests it, but before the liberal industry gets too pious about it, think a little.

Whe it's your family, or friends, or son or daugter next to the timer, and you can't find it, you will think very differently, no matter how liberal you claim to be.

Unless you are just terminally liberal that is, and terminal it will be one day, when you really have to act and you don't, citing some human rights act, when the criminal threat sees it like as much ass-wipe.

Rockter.

[camaraderie]

My own view...waterboarding is NOT torture...I don't understand how anyone can say it is when it lasts for 2 minutes at most, causes no real pain, merely panic, and the "victims" are up and around and blabbing their mouths off with no ill effects a minute later. It lies at the top of "coercive" interrogation techniques and as such should never be employed without a damn good reason and an OK from the highest authority in controlled circumstances.
So far...the evidence says that between 2001 and 2004 and NOT SINCE...the USA waterboarded THREE high value terrorists for a grand total of less than 4 minutes and in at least TWO of the cases we received high value information that saved American lives that we hadn't gotten using more conventional methods of interrogation.
I'd like to shake the hands of the guys that did it.

[sailaway21]

The Dog and Poltergeist manage to turn logic on it's head from where I'm sitting, now on the day of Christmas Eve.

Defending the practise of waterboarding based on the record of just one individual, or a few individuals, is exactly what DOES make sense. What would not make sense in a policy of waterboarding every prisoner that we take. As the article posited, we were more than reasonably sure that the individual in question had knowledge that would save many lives. I'm thinking we're lucky somebody had their head about them and thought of coercing him instead of just outright shooting him.

I would take exception to the description of those terrorist attacks as criminal as well, although I understand the tendency to do so. I prefer to regard them as acts of war, as I feel that that description more clearly delineates their nature. Were the acts merely criminal it would be a simple matter for the law enforcement agencies to pursue and prosecute. For what? Flying with a pilot's license? No, these were acts aimed against the nation as a whole, as well as western democracy in my opinion. In support of my point I would offer the analogy that we only consider genocide to be criminal when other words fail us.

Even money says that the congress will do nothing to prohibit the practise of waterboarding. It's one thing to take the moral high ground, quite another to have blood on your own hands.

It's also interesting that no one has advanced the notion that torture itself doesn't work; obviously fear does work. We're forced to draw some very fine lines in this discussion, that most of us, myself included, are leary of drawing in stone. I would doubt that we'll, like the US congress, come up with a hard and fast policy that suits all situations at all times, ie...the seeming ineffectiveness and irrelevance of the Geneva conventions.

[sailaway21]

Poltergeist,
You might want to read the forum guidelines to the OFF TOPIC forum at the top of the contents page. If that information is insufficient, I'd recommend you travel down to see the Padre, he'll punch your ticket, and he's probably around close today.

[RAGNAR]

Originally Posted by camaraderie

My own view...waterboarding is NOT torture...I don't understand how anyone can say it is when it lasts for 2 minutes at most, causes no real pain, merely panic, and the "victims" are up and around and blabbing their mouths off with no ill effects a minute later.

Anything done physically to someone that compels them is torture. That there are no physical consequences to a given method of torture may make it more palatable, but as long as there's compulsion it's torture.

So what?

Contrary to American interpretations of law, there is no such thing as the right to withhold information -- not even when you're the defendant. (The 5th was established to shelter the accused from lawyers that were well-versed in cross-examination trickery, not to stifle investigations.)

If we don't get off our detached from reality high-horse, we won't win this thing -- we won't even be here. (Let's not forget the moral code that surrendered the oil wells to a primitive culture that wouldn't know what to do with that ooze if it wasn't for the evil, materialist West -- 60 years later, we had 9/11.)