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Yes they should...as should anyone in our government who knowingly directed, participated or knew of such goings-on at any US government prison. I don't care if it's a "little" water boarding, little slits on your testicles, little taps on the ear drum, little bamboo slivers under the nails or what. It's torture nonetheless and this country should be above such things.
So that's where the bar is set at now? "Permanent physical" harm? If police bring you in for questioning, should they be allowed to stab/beat/punch/electrocute you (not fatally), since, well, you'll heal and it won't be "permanent"?
We executed Japanese soldiers at the end of WWII for water boarding. Apparently Japanese water boarding == torture, but CIA water boarding == eXtreme interrogation.
Japanese also stuck bamboo sticks under fingernails and castrated young soldiers.
it wasn't JUST for water boarding.
and police have no right to water board Americans because Americans are protected far more than terrorists... who kill Americans.
i mean, do police have a right to assassinate gang leaders? no. but soldiers have the right to assassinate al-Qaeda leaders, and all people with him at the time.
i think you're forgetting about the most important issue right now. we're at war. this isn't some fuckin' game where we should play by strict rules. if we fuck around like that, more lives are destroyed.
"...in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian....Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor".
And that was just for water boarding. Maybe we should just sentence Bush & Co to 15 years hard labor then?
I think you're forgetting about an even more important issue. We're not in a contest to out-sleeze the terrorists. Just because we're scared of terrorists doesn't mean we get to wipe our ass with the Constitution. We can debate on how effective waterboarding is. However, it's undeniable that all the torturing and prision abuse scandals have recruited an even larger terrorist following, which is definitely costing us more lives.
When you start letting the government use "extreme interrogation" techniques on people they think might be criminals, prevent the media from knowing who's imprisioned, how they're being treated, and block them from ever being tried in a court of law, then it's a short hop to a Soviet-era police state where "undersiables" just dissppear.
i'm not saying let the government use it on American citizens. i never said that. i'm against that in total.
but, at a time of war, it should be used on enemy combatants if they fit the same standards as the captured terrorists (who before the releasing of the memos actually taught their followers to give up information when they can no longer stand the interrogation methods). like i said, in War we drop bombs onto areas where terrorist leaders are. i don't think water boarding captured enemy combatants (and these are only during the ticking time bomb scenario may i remind you) is really crossing the line. War is Hell. And, water boarding is the least of the enemy's problem. I think they should be more worried about our missiles coming straight for their bases. or maybe a squadron of US Navy SEALS ready to blow their head off at any second.
You do realize that the President has the legal authority to declare any American citizen an "enemy combatant" for any reason? Bush then argued that enemy combatants shouldn't even be giving trials, effectively saying the government has the legal authority to simply make you disappear if they don't like you.
I'll never understand how conservatives can give the government that kind of power, and then whine and complain when the government is too big and taxing them too heavily.
They do that because Republican policies are the embodiment of hypocrisy.
"Government stay out of our lives"
At the same time:
"Don't let those people get married. Don't let them remove that ball of 15 cells from their body that will one day turn into a baby they have to feed. Don't let those people put into their body what they want to. Go ahead and record conversations of people without a warrant. Go ahead and ignore the constitution if you think it's important."
"How dare you tax us that is so wrong. Liberals spend so much it is so bad"
At the same time:
"The government needs to pay for trillion dollar escapades in foreign countries. Increase the military. We need more weapons. We need more prisons. More police officers."
Conservatives are the most cognitively dissonant group of people I have ever seen.
The thing that makes us civil and protectors of human rights, is the fact that we do not participate in torture or torture like practices... We as "leaders of the free world" (and i use the term free exremely loosely) are the ones to set the example. Besides, torture is not a reliable source of information.
According the CIA memos that Obama released, coerce interrogation was an excellent way to get information:
besides the end result of them receiving info on and preventing the Second Wave, terrorists were actually taught that once they could no longer handle the interrogation to give up the information. that they have done enough for Allah. unfortunately, with the release of that information, the terrorists know specifically on our methods
also, torture is defined as causing permanent physical or mental harm on an individual. water boarding did not do this. in fact, it was very strictly done so that there wasn't a chance of a mess up.
and define human rights and who gets them? aren't we at war. what, we can kill terrorists but we can't water board them? that's one fucked up view on human rights, dude.
Do you believe everything the CIA tells you? if so you are a mindless sheep.... Im sure you believe there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq too right?
If i were being tortured I would tell you anything in the world just to end it...
You dont think that fear of waterboarding could cause permanant mental harm? In addition i never said anything about waterboarding in my previous post... I have never experienced it so I will not say its torture or not... but if it is torture, we should not use the technique
And last time I checked when you are at war... there are still rules you must follow (ie the Geneva Conventions)
the Geneva Conventions. so many things wrong with that (and i did NOT down vote you since down voting is childish).
1. it applies to Uniformed personnel and says nothing about terrorists.
2. is filled with bullshit rules. soldiers aren't even allowed to intimidate the enemy. a soldier was recently thrown out because he fired his weapon into the ground in order to scare one of the captured terrorists (who had info on an attack on a Unit). society is supposed to stand up to things that they know are wrong, so why are people doing just the opposite and supporting the Geneva Convention?
thats what seperates us from terrorists... if we resort to the same tactics they use... then we are no different... Then you have to ask the question Why are we fighting these people... we are just like them. The thing that makes America a great country is that we dont resort to those tactics... we get shit done without resorting to terror tactics (even though the government uses scare tactics on the american public to get them to conform)
if we resorted to the same tactics that THEY used then we would be beheading them or cutting them into pieces, slowly. water boarding is nothing compared to what they do, not only to our soldiers, but to their own people.
water boarding, in the way that the CIA and military has been trained to do it, is only temporary extreme discomfort.
Bush & company approved the legal opinions behind the CIA memos recently released, and any sane individual would consider the methods described as torture. Granted, legally, the definition is somewhat vague, and considering the political pressure from Republicans, they'll probably never actually get prosecuted.
Of course they should be prosecuted for Torture. It's the obligation of the United States, as a party of the UN Convention on Torture to prosecute any and all of it's nationals involved in act of torture within the US territory and out of it. Furthermore, the country has prosecuted and condemned people for war crimes (namely torture) before. If Bush and his minions are not prosecuted, not only would it be highly hypocritical, it would also make the United States lose more of its credibility in the eyes of the world.
Absolutely. Torture is against the law, and if Bush and his associates ordered or encouraged it, regardless of reason, they should definitely be held to the same standards as anyone else.
Bush and company should not be prosecuted for torture. A little water boarding never hurt anybody. Getting your head cut off with a rusty pocket knife, however, is quite a different story.
That is inhumane and factually incorrect. First of all water boarding causes lasting psychological problems.
Dr. Allen Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated "a number of people" who had been subjected to forms of near-asphyxiation, including waterboarding. An interview for The New Yorker states, "[He] argued that it was indeed torture, 'Some victims were still traumatized years later', he said. One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained. 'The fear of being killed is a terrifying experience', he said".
There is a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from inhalation of water. Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD. I remind you of the patient I described earlier who would panic and gasp for breath whenever it rained even years after his abuse".
It is a violation of international law that the US agreed to. I have heard many people claim, "Oh it's no big deal you can just hold your breath" or "It's just a little water on your face what is the harm in that?" You are ignorant. You do not understand the physical and psychological effects of thinking you are drowning. It doesn't matter if you go into knowing you will be fine. It essentially does drown you very slowly, and you feel just like you are drowning. It's no coincidence that the have volunteered to try to it as long as they can, cannot last for more than 10 seconds. Now imagine, you haven't slept for days, you aren't being fed properly, and some thugs grab you from your cell strap to you a board and put a cloth on your face. That is immeasurably worse than doing an experiment. I forgive you for your barbarism because you are clearly ignorant of the facts, but you need to understand that this is a practice that does not even have words to describe its cruelty.
Also your argument that because getting your head cut off is worse than water boarding is stupid. So because stabbing someone's eye out is not as bad as killing them, it should be legal, utter nonsense. Furthermore if given the option to die while being water boarded, I wouldn't be surprised if they chose to die. You do not understand what it is like to be water boarded. The United States sentenced a Japanese officer to 15 years of hard labor for water boarding. Water boarding is torture and totally ineffective. Those who authorize and condoned its use should be prosecuted for the laws that they violated. If they aren't served justice, our laws mean nothing
Please cite the terrorist attacks that it stopped. Please cite the valid information we got from water boarding.
Don't even bother using the usual GOP sound bite of "it prevented the LA towers attack." This does not fit the time line. Some people would have you believe that the water boarding of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad led to the discovery of the plot, but that doesn't hold up the facts. The CIA found out about the attack that really wasn't even planned out or likely to be planned out before Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was ever interrogated.
OK, so here's what you're saying, the CIA has never gotten any useful information out of water boarding and you know that for a fact. The CIA must water board because they get a kick out of it. I mean, why use something that doesn't yield results. Or are you saying that the CIA water boarded a specific guy and did not get the information about the specific LA towers attack?
Please cite the data that says that water boarding has never yielded any results.
"I mean, why use something that doesn't yield results."
Very good question considering the government is impervious to mistakes.
I'm saying the information about the LA towers attack was all gleaned through persuasive interrogation techniques.
And the burden of proof is on the person making the positive claim. I would never be able to find something that definitively proved torture yielded no results. We would determine it by your failure to find evidence of its success.
No I said pursausive techniques were successful. That is not torture. One thing they do is befriend the suspect to try and gain their trust. That works, torture doesn't.
OK, but torture also works sometimes and yields results. Or are you saying that torture never works? If you're saying that torture never works, then I want to see your sources.
Yeah....., no. I'm putting the burden of proof on you. The burden of proof is on the person making the negative claim. You claim that torture does not work, so you must prove it. ;)
It isn't about a choice of who has to prove the claim. I can show you various interrogation experts who say that torture doesn't work, but that doesn't prove it does not work. The only way to prove it doesn't work is a complete lack of evidence that torture led to no actionable intelligence despite all of the people tortured.
Your argument is so ridiculous. Because there are some people who do worse things than water boarding, it is okay to water board. Do you even realize how illogical and insane that is?
No, not really. I don't realize how illogical and insane that is because we are out to win a war against a group of people that will stop at nothing to see us destroyed. Why should we fight fair when they are not fighting fair.
Here's your argument. If someone breaks into your house and kills one of your children and escapes but you capture someone you know is affiliated with the killer and the killer has sworn to come back and kill your other child, you would not water board the guy to try and figure out where the killer is. I mean, that's very noble of you and all but do you realize how illogical and insane that is?
Just wondering what country was our declaration of war signed against? You can't fight a war against a technique such as terrorism. And that is an incredibly slippery slope that you are on. "Why should we fight fair when they are not fighting fair." When we use al-Qaeda as a moral frame of reference, we lower ourselves to their standards. We totally lose the moral high ground when we do that.
What I would do personally is completely distinct from what the government should do. I would probably do everything in my power to get my child back including torture or murder. But that would be wrong, and I should be tried by a jury of my peers for the crimes I committed. This is not an argument about what citizens should do, but what agents of our government should do or should not do.
This isn't a war. You can't call something a war just because guns are involved. And call it high ground or moral high ground it doesn't matter. If we ignore our values when it gets difficult they mean nothing.
Sure it is. it's the war on terror. Just because it isn't a traditional war doesn't mean it isn't a war. Besides, our values mean what we say they mean at a specific point in time based on what benefits us more at that time ;)
can you prove that waterboarding never hurt anyone? Like ive said in other posts, I have never experienced waterboarding, and I bet you havnt either. There should definitly be more information pertaining to the physical and mental side effects of the technique
If you try Bush for using aggressive interrogation techniques then Truman should have been tried for dropping the Atomic Bomb or Lyndon Johnson for bombing North Vietnam.
In my opinion, yes, they should have. I don't understand why an act of war is not a crime, especially acts such as bombing civilian areas, much less an atomic bomb that killed and maimed countless civilians with unpredictable results and backlash that still exists to this day.
If they prosecuted them then all fututre presidents would almost be "afraid" to do anything different without going to prision. It would completely change the way the presidents run.
That's a weird way of thinking. It'd make an example out of them and show future presidents that breaking the constitution and committing atrocious acts in the name of 'justice' is wrong, and there is a price to pay.
Good! Presidents should be "affraid" to break the law.... just like every other citizen of the united states... If you break the law, whether it be federal, state, or geneva conventions, etc.... then you should fear the consequences of your actions
For all practical purposes, this is sadly the case. Ford set a horrible precedent by saying, no matter what crimes the President commits, their Vice-President will simply pardon them.
If Bush had actually been impeached while he was still in office, you'd bet Cheney would have pardoned him.
If it wasnt for the Patriot Act, warrantless NSA wiretapping and waterboarding, terrorist would have cut the cables holding the Brooklyn Bridge aloft and the entire span would have plunged into the East River, killing tens of thousands. They would have attacked the New York City subway system, just as they did the London Metro; they would have blown up the Herald Square stop-where Macy's and the heart of New York's shopping area is located. They would have destroyed Chicago's Sears Tower, as attractive a target as the World Trade Center. They would have obliterated the United States embassy in Paris, at the heart of the beautiful Place de la Concorde-right next to the spot where the guillotines reigned during the French Revolution. They would have blown up an Ohio shopping mall near Columbus. They would have destroyed the Toronto stock exchange and a number of police headquarters building there. They would have succeeded in mounting a strike called Operation Crevice, leveling important buildings throughout the city of London, England. They would have blown up New York City's tunnels. A Chicago terrorist would have exploded a dirty bomb, spreading radioactivity over a large area of the United States. They would have attacked cargo ships taking oil from the Straits of Hormuz, through which 40 perecent of the world's oil travels. Of course none of these plots were executed; many of them-including the final three list here-were thwarted just in times. Due to the Patriot Act, waterboarding and warrantless NSA wiretapes, Bush saves America lives, but of course you liberals hate America and all want to join the Taliban, just like that one CA guy.
Those are some pretty lofty claims considering you have absolutely no evidence. Let's disregard the fact that you have no idea what you're talking about for a second, and assume that unconstitutional wiretapping and torture did prevent the things you said, which they didn't. Even so it isn't worth it. The ends do not justify the means. I have a surefire way you could lower the crime rate. Just force every woman who gets pregnant and doesn't have a household income over $100,000 to get an abortion. The crime rate will lower, I promise you. But it isn't worth sacrificing our civil liberties. If we make every crime punishable by death, and you are guilty until proven innocent, kind of like under Stalin's Russia, the crime rate would approach zero. You could go anywhere in the middle of the night and nothing would happen to you. No would would ever take the risks of committing crimes and if they did they were killed. But that security is not worth the damage to freedom.
If you are trying to have meaningful intelligent discourse, saying all liberals hate America and want to join the Taliban is just stupid. If you knew anything about politics or the Taliban you would understand that the Taliban are on the conservative end of the political spectrum so if anyone is going to join the Taliban it would not be liberals.
No evidence to back it up? yeah I do, and I got them all from the book Outrage by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, why dont you read it if your so concerned about me not having evidence to back up those claims. Chapter 5, page 175-196. By the way, both of them are New York Times Bestselling authors.
You're expecting me to go out and buy a book just to see your evidence for your point? If the things you said were true, you would be able to find more evidence than a single book.
If Bush gets prosecuted, that (female dog) Nancy Pelosi should be prosecuted as well, SHE KNEW. O yeah, she first claimed that ''I had no knowledge, repeat, I had to knowledge of waterboarding.'' Then next thing you know it shes saying ''Waterboarding was discussed, but they said they werent going to use it.'' ''I did not have sex with that women.'' Sound fimiliar? She sounds exactly like Bill Clinton did.
So you're comparing having an extramarital affair to authorizing the inhumane torture and abuse of people who were never proven guilty? To my knowledge there is no statute prohibiting Congress from not doing anything about torture. However, I do want anyone who knew about the torture programs who have their complicit support to be removed from office.
I say no strictly because something worse than waterboarding some terrorists could've happened (like another couple thousand innocent people dying). Of course, we all have no sincere proof what was next on the terrorists agenda (I think), but we know they were thinking of doing something else and we, successfully, stopped them... without murdering them. And they murdered many Americans to stop us from ... what? (No, really, I'm still unclear on the 9/11 crap). But anyway, you'd have to have a lot of balls to feel any sympathy for someone suffering psychological problems from waterboarding when it "probably" saved this countries ass. At least we didn't lower ourselves completely to Iraq's level and do the freaky shit they do.
torture is defined as causing permanent physical or mental damage to an individual.
Water boarding, under the restrictions that were placed, does not and did not cause any permanent physical or mental damage. it is considered temporary discomfort for terrorists that saved thousands of Americans lives.
So no, don't prosecute for torture. it wouldn't make sense.
If you want to go by the dictionary definition "1 a: anguish of body or mind : agony b: something that causes agony or pain." Believe you me, it causes extreme anguish of mind. If you want to go by legal experts or human rights organizations, water boarding is absolutely a form of torture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding#Classification_as_torture
Click the numbers next to each profession on that link for citations.
It does not cause permanent physical damage, but it definitely can cause mental damage. Many people who were water boarded suffer from PTSD, anxiety, and extreme aquaphobia.
It is not just temporary comfort, and it has not saved any lives stop believing the propaganda you hear. Water boarding was developed as a tool to extract FALSE confessions. And that is what we got from the detainees we water boarded. It didn't lead to information that proved viable. Actual interrogators unlike right-wing pundits, agree that it is completely ineffective. There are many techniques that don't even involve pain or fear that are really effective. Do yourself a favor and do some reading, don't just watch television.
so, by your definition of torture, having to listen to Taylor Swift would be torture for me, correct?
or maybe, having to go to school would be torture for some children.
there's a reason why we don't just say "agony or pain". it's because it's too broad. so we say it has to cause PERMANENT damage. which water boarding does not. it's actually less than what they do to Navy Seals in training.
How would you know what mental damage may or may not have been cause because of this technique? Did you read a government report? Because Im sure those are such reliable sources of information. Kind of like marijuana will cause you to go insane and cannibalism. Unless of course you are an expert in psychology, and have spent countless years of studying torture techniques and the mental and physical effects of being subjected to such cruelties over and over and over.
Look, I know that Bush and his buddies did some crazy wacky things when they were in office, but I don't think they maliciously tortured any innocent people physically. I hate them too, but they should be prosecuted for something else.
Whatever Bush and his cronies did can't be even a SMALL FRACTION of what the terrorists all over the world have done to us, and all the other countries out there who are also fighting terrorism (9/11!). These guys deserve it!