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

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.

Bravo! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If water boarding is so ineffective, how is it that it yields results that allow us to stop terrorist plans?

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.

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.

Uh, yeah, that's the point. Presidents should be afraid of breaking the law, just like everyone else.

Oh noes! Now that the terrorist know we torture, the torture will actually feel pleasurable! Curse Obama!

Do you know what....

is more inhumane?

has longer lasting, negative phsycological problems?

is in violation of international law?

is more cruel and barbaric?

than water boarding?

cutting someone's head off with a rusty pocket knife.

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

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.

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.

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.

It is a fact that Bush's regime tortured prisoners; the real question is why they are not currently being prosecuted for a felony.

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.

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.

"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.

But according to Nixon if the president does it, it is legal. /sarcasm

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)

what is water boarding ....? Ive never herd of that before.... but i agree 100%

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.

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)

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.

Wow seriously. The only evidence you have is inferring an implied hypothetical anecdotal situation?

"Besides, our values mean what we say they mean at a specific point in time based on what benefits us more at that time"

That is disgusting and I sincerely hope you were kidding.

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.

Right. And someone would have talked. Which would have led to actionable intelligence. Thus proving that it works.

You know, we can go around like this for like ever ;)

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. ;)

Once again I remind you that the burden of proof is on the person making the positive claim. You claim torture works, so you must prove it.

I was saying that pursausive techniques work which are totally different from coercive techniques.

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.

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.

OK, so torture works sometimes and yields results. I'm OK with that ;)

In war, one must take the high ground, this is true. But the "moral" high ground? Taking the moral high ground during war seems like an oxymoron ;)

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.

This is not my definition that is the definition of many experts if you bothered to look at the link I cited.

Oh, well, I guess waterboarding is A-OK then.

"...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'd prefer to hold our system of justice up to our standards, not the terrorist's standards.

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.

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.

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

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.