Bush Vetos Waterboarding

[Iliad]

Gip... how come you never give at least one realist option for someone with an opposing view on your polls?

I do like all the subjects you raise here.

I like the sense of humor you bring to the conversation.
(Even though it someitmes annoys.)

It's thought provking and it spurs good konversations.

That said... an option like;
"Maybe... I mean I don't really approve of the idea of torturing people. However if I believe the information gathered would save lives I can't really say I wouldn't do it."



You know... never say never man.

You got kids?

Some sick bastard takes your little girl and puts her in a hole somewhere. You find him... but he's not telling where she is. You telling me you wouldn't do ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING you could think of to get this guy to talk?????

he's trying to do polls xtra-wise

[Iliad]

Personally, I don't have a huge problem with it. I like to think that I'm realistic and that we sometimes need information and we need it fast, and sometimes torture is the only way to do it.

However, against our own citizens? Absolutely not, and not just because I'm selfish and I don't want to be tortured. It's more to do with the liberties and whatnot guaranteed by our laws and Constitution.

Anyway, it's probably just because I'm a heartless, soulless son of a bitch.

yeah so you can torture people. But you can't torture american citizens. Because they are allowed liberties and everyone else isn't

[heavycola]

For the last 200 years, American society has been struggling toward a more equal, just, and free society. At the center of much of that struggle has been a societal drive to do what is right. I can't see how any American who believes in the rights to life and liberty and in the Bill of Rights (cruel and unusual punishment, anyone?) could possibly defend any kind of torture. While I understand the gist of GT's arguments regarding dehumanization of muslims, particularly radical islamists, America cannot afford to compromise our moral principles based on a mentality of 'they're not really humans anyway, they're animals' or 'the enemy is doing it to us, so why don't we do it to them?'. That kind of rationalization is inexcusable.

And tom, the analogy comparing capturing a guy who kidnapped your child doesn't remotely apply. Maybe it would apply if you were talking about a law being passed expressly allowing you to torture the asshole, but individual acts of passion are completely different than state-defined policy. We're talking about a law that will tell the CIA that it's not allowed to use torture as standard operating procedure. Arguments that such practices should be protected are based on a culture of fear. If you're really proud to be an American, then you can't be prepared to leave American principles behind as soon as America is threatened.

win.

[Napoleon Ier]

For the last 200 years, American society has been struggling toward a more equal, just, and free society. At the center of much of that struggle has been a societal drive to do what is right. I can't see how any American who believes in the rights to life and liberty and in the Bill of Rights (cruel and unusual punishment, anyone?) could possibly defend any kind of torture. While I understand the gist of GT's arguments regarding dehumanization of muslims, particularly radical islamists, America cannot afford to compromise our moral principles based on a mentality of 'they're not really humans anyway, they're animals' or 'the enemy is doing it to us, so why don't we do it to them?'. That kind of rationalization is inexcusable.

And tom, the analogy comparing capturing a guy who kidnapped your child doesn't remotely apply. Maybe it would apply if you were talking about a law being passed expressly allowing you to torture the asshole, but individual acts of passion are completely different than state-defined policy. We're talking about a law that will tell the CIA that it's not allowed to use torture as standard operating procedure. Arguments that such practices should be protected are based on a culture of fear. If you're really proud to be an American, then you can't be prepared to leave American principles behind as soon as America is threatened.

Water-board him!

[jimboston]

Last point here... if they could've kept it secret they would've.

I know some people here believe the Gov't can keep secrets...
*JFK assasinated by the CIA/Mod/Cuba
*Man has never landed on the moon... it's a farce.
*Area 51... aliens from another star system live amoung us and the Gov't knows. (Shit... the aliens are the reason we get cancer.)
*Aids is a neo-con created virus.. intended to wipe out lefty-gays and also to depopulate Africa.

I personally believe none of this... but the conspriracy theorists who do now also wonder why the gov't can keep this stuff secret, but not torture of a few muslims.

As for the rest of your conspiracy topics you have brought up, I do not feel the need to answer to them in this thread.

Perhaps this calls for some knew threads?

Please don't tell me you think we never actually landed on the moon!

... at times torture may prove to be effective, but most of the time it is just being cruel and humiliating your enemy prisoners.

Torture is like gambling, sometimes you hit BlackJack and you get all excited, but keep playing and you will end up bust!

I agree Gip that torture can degenerate into what you describe. I do't condone things like Abu Garabe (sp?)... that stuff surved no purpose.

I do like th comparison to BlackJack. I gotta give you this man... at least you can keep the humor in this.

[dewey316]

... at times torture may prove to be effective, but most of the time it is just being cruel and humiliating your enemy prisoners.

I think that everyone would agree with that. Wether or not the US should "torture" isn't the question, of course we should not.

The million dollar question is, where is the line between torture and interrogation. Where is the line between treating a prisioner with information in a manner that helps get them to cooperate, and not providing descent living conditions for our prisioners.

The problem is that as so much stuff in our society, only the two extreme views get published in our news. You seem to get either the view, that OMG we waterboarded someone 4 years ago, we are barbians!!1!, or you get the people who are ready to start cutting off peoples fingers until they talk. IMO, what the US's policy should be, is probably somewhere in the middle. We need to allow the people who are tasked with protecting our country, the ability to interogate prisions with effective means, while still keeping with international law, and still providing our prisioners with their basic human needs, and in a manner that we would want them to treat our boys when they capture them.

So, what the poll and this discussion should really be about, is wether or not waterboarding is considered torture, or if it is a valid interrogation method. And we need to do this with every method we are going to use.

[got tonkaed]

i think thats fair all things considered, every method probably deserves a discussion...and while personally id probably come off against a larger number than some, if theres anything approaching transparency that is to be desired, its probably teh type of thing that has to occur.

[dewey316]

if theres anything approaching transparency that is to be desired, its probably teh type of thing that has to occur.

Yes, I think there needs to be a certain ammount of tranparency, that is a basis for a democratic society. And this sort of thing needs to be discussed. We also though, need to be careful on just how much detailed information is available. We want to have a certain ammount of technique that is going to be a "suprise" to people who are become our prisioners. Them knowing every one of our methods, allows them the train to withstand them, and renders them inefective.

The key here, is that we need to have politicians, and people in place in levels our agency's, that have a grounded moral basis to be making sound descisions on what is, and what isn't torture, and what is and isn't allowable.

[Guiscard]

So, what the poll and this discussion should really be about, is wether or not waterboarding is considered torture, or if it is a valid interrogation method. And we need to do this with every method we are going to use.

Does it make a difference that the US have prosecuted people for using waterboarding in the past? Enemy soldiers have been convicted of war crimes in the past for waterboarding by US courts. That, to me, says that even in the eyes of the US it is a crime.

[got tonkaed]

if theres anything approaching transparency that is to be desired, its probably teh type of thing that has to occur.

Yes, I think there needs to be a certain ammount of tranparency, that is a basis for a democratic society. And this sort of thing needs to be discussed. We also though, need to be careful on just how much detailed information is available. We want to have a certain ammount of technique that is going to be a "suprise" to people who are become our prisioners. Them knowing every one of our methods, allows them the train to withstand them, and renders them inefective.

The key here, is that we need to have politicians, and people in place in levels our agency's, that have a grounded moral basis to be making sound descisions on what is, and what isn't torture, and what is and isn't allowable.

I have a bit of a problem with this line of thinking. Seemingly anyone who is training someone for the potential eventuality of being caught and detained, is likely to train someone for methods that are on par with that level and methods that are certainly worse, as it would be a relatively silly person who would assume full transparency is ever achieved.

As with anything in terms of moral ground, you have the choice to do what is expedient or you have the choice to be more consistent and the two are not always the same thing. IF we are going to bother to discuss methods and their viability as applied in practical settings on a moral ground, purposefully holding a stance that we must keep some things hidden is seemingly in the wrong. Both on a moral and practical level.

[dewey316]

Guiscard, here is where I show that I don't know a lot about how our current waterboarding process works. I know that in WWII, when we convicted the Japanies of war crimes for torture, the water torture they were using, they drowned people to the point of them losing concensionness. I do not condone the US doing that, just as we would not allow the Japaneese to, and convicted for doing that.

As I said, I don't have enough information based on the little bit of reading I have done on the current use. If we have done the the same thing that we convicted others of, we should convict the people in our governement who have done that. I don't claim to be an expert on waterboarding, I was speaking rather generaly, we need to apply the same logic to any method we use.

[dewey316]

As with anything in terms of moral ground, you have the choice to do what is expedient or you have the choice to be more consistent and the two are not always the same thing. IF we are going to bother to discuss methods and their viability as applied in practical settings on a moral ground, purposefully holding a stance that we must keep some things hidden is seemingly in the wrong. Both on a moral and practical level.

I think you can do both. You can have an open and transparent discussion on the moral ground that we will hold as a country, when i comes to treatment of prisioners, without giving away SO much information as to completely give away all of our methods in enough detail, that it is easier to train someone to withstand them.

[got tonkaed]

well to what point is it even relevant to have the discussions other than to make yourself sleep a little better (if thats even an issue). If your going to go well beyond the limits discourse establishes as practically applicable (which seemingly youd have to) it seems to invalidate the process.

I think if your going to be open about things you have to be pretty open, because the line drawing process seems like a loser proposition in the long run.

[dewey316]

well to what point is it even relevant to have the discussions other than to make yourself sleep a little better (if thats even an issue).

I don't think my sleeping is the issue.

If your going to go well beyond the limits discourse establishes as practically applicable (which seemingly youd have to) it seems to invalidate the process.

That is the key, the methods can NOT go beyond the limits estabilished. We need to have very strick limits, and as new methods are thought up, they need to be tested against those limits before we even think about using them on a person. My stating that we don't need want want to give out too much information, is absolutly not a suggestion that we allow people to cross boundries that we set. I said what I said in very simple terms, that we might want to have some methods available to the people that are questioning suspects with critical information, that the person on the other side, may not have been aware that we do. Those methods need to fall within the what is allowable, I did not mean in any way to say that I though we should give people the ability to cross preset lines.

[got tonkaed]

I don't think my sleeping is the issue.

i often get lazy with language, i mean collectively speaking here not specifically to you. If the only purpose of having discussions about methods is to make us feel better about ourselves, it doesnt seemt o be worth having.

That is the key, the methods can NOT go beyond the limits estabilished. We need to have very strick limits, and as new methods are thought up, they need to be tested against those limits before we even think about using them on a person. My stating that we don't need want want to give out too much information, is absolutly not a suggestion that we allow people to cross boundries that we set. I said what I said in very simple terms, that we might want to have some methods available to the people that are questioning suspects with critical information, that the person on the other side, may not have been aware that we do. Those methods need to fall within the what is allowable, I did not mean in any way to say that I though we should give people the ability to cross preset lines.

bolded are the parts that i feel are not actually possible to have in something that approaches a transparent fashion involving the public and therefore doesnt need to be discussed as a public issue, since we wouldnt be in those policy meetings anyway (not that we are necessarily in those meetings to begin with). I dont think establishing limits and having information set aside is anything but hollow, even if it makes you to a point strategically weaker.

Whether or not some things are sacrificed in strategical expediency is another matter imo.

[dewey316]

I guess that is were we are in disagreement. I'm trying to come up with a good way to word what I am thinking.

In the same way that we have nuclear weapons safeguards. We need to have a well established system, and very strick rules, but everything about those rules doesn't need to be public. For example, I don't know every gritty detail of how a authorazation process for launching a missle works, because my knowing that would render that process ineffective. But our society set boundries for our military to follow, and they made a policy that fits in those guidlines, without giving out the details for security reasons.

I am thinking along the same lines with this, we need to make sure that the methods used fit within a very strict rule set.

[got tonkaed]

I guess that is were we are in disagreement. I'm trying to come up with a good way to word what I am thinking.

In the same way that we have nuclear weapons safeguards. We need to have a well established system, and very strick rules, but everything about those rules doesn't need to be public. For example, I don't know every gritty detail of how a authorazation process for launching a missle works, because my knowing that would render that process ineffective. But our society set boundries for our military to follow, and they made a policy that fits in those guidlines, without giving out the details for security reasons.

I am thinking along the same lines with this, we need to make sure that the methods used fit within a very strict rule set.

while i understand that line of argument, there would seem to be something different between something that is rather technical in nature and doesnt really require as much of public intervention as opposed to how we are to treat human beings in order to extract information of them, especially when it will be necessary to harm them to do so.

[BigBallinStalin]

.

[Army of GOD]

Oh yea, like Americans are really trustworthy.

[Woodruff]

I thought we already went through this. Torture doesn't produce reliable information, most of which is erroneous.

This has been verified by many high and low-ranking officers of the US Armed Forces, the CIA, and FBI agents, and even interrogators.

Yes, we went through this...TWO FREAKING YEARS AGO, which is when the post you're replying to was made.

[jefjef]

Whats with all this necro bumping crap? Symmetry get your pw stalin?

[BigBallinStalin]

.

[PLAYER57832]

Never mind the necrobumping, your poll omits a major reason we should not torture prisoners, namely that torture is proven a very ineffective means of getting real information. It does, however, create a lot of sadistic gaurds.