Waterboarding..Interrogation or Torture?(video)

[2bighorn]

I don't oppose waterboarding... or most other forms of torture. 

Apart that torture is illegal and pretty much against principles this country is build upon, it crosses just about every moral/ethical/legal boundary known to western societies, and one day it may come back to bite us in the rear, if found acceptable not only by people but by our government as well.

What really worries me is that such people are passing skewed ethics down to new generations by means like that of home schooling, etc...

[Baitman]

Sometimes good people have to do bad things to bad people in order to survive.

Just how I see things. 

How exactly does the good stay good in this situation??????

[SirLoin]

a life or death struggle on the playground?  that is about the worst comparision i've seen in a while.

I think Yeager was trying to show how pacifism doesn't work.

[Angus]

AFAIK some prisoners have been released from Guantanamo since there was no evidence. Makes you wonder if they still had to suffer a dip.
One of them however put his mind on the job and died in a suicide bomb attack.
Was it revenge, or was he just following the original code?
Either way, if you wanna play the good guy, well play the good guy. Get to deep into the grey zone, and maybe you'll come out as the bad guy...

[2bighorn]

I think Yeager was trying to show how pacifism doesn't work.

Sometimes it works, but that's beside the point.

[Rich46yo]

Well, Im still waiting for the Japanese WW-ll waterboarding atrocities commited on Yank POWs.

Imagine that? They skewered, cooked, ate, bayoneted, burned, beheaded, infected, gassed, American POWs by the thousands and Dynamite came up with

I've pointed this out before - after WWII the USA tried, convicted, and EXECUTED 8 Japanese officers for the WAR CRIME of Waterboarding...

Well, it sounded good.

I was going to type a whole post but decided not to. All I'll say is that in the entire history of mankind only Americans could be concerned about the rights of terrorists that want to murder them and their families.

Most here dont have kids or kin over there getting blowed up by these scumbags so that makes it easier to poke holes in the air and wax morality.

I bet those that are there, and their kin back here, probably think its a good idea to force high ranking terrorists to give information that would save American, and Allied, lives. Most of all when the methods used are far more humane then what these wretched criminals would do to them.

[2bighorn]

Most here dont have kids or kin over there getting blowed up by these scumbags so that makes it easier to poke holes in the air and wax morality.

What a load of crap. We had wars before, when many more were in harms way, yet mothers and fathers of those who fought, nor the soldiers themselves, did not legalize savagery.

What's so different now?

[DREDIOCK]

Apart that torture is illegal and pretty much against principles this country is build upon, it crosses just about every moral/ethical/legal boundary known to western societies, and one day it may come back to bite us in the rear, if found acceptable not only by people but by our government as well.

What really worries me is that such people are passing skewed ethics down to new generations by means like that of home schooling, etc...

just a general responce to this line of thinking.
Prior to this and for quite a few decades now.
We didnt torture.
We had other countries do it for us.

Personally I dont see much of a difference ethically.
If you hire someone to kill someone arent you just as guilty of murder as the one who did it?

The only difference between now and then is we could technically say "We dont torture"
Because we personally diidnt do it.
That doesnt mean we didnt have anyone else do it.

[BnZ]

I suppose at some point this becomes a moral issue, and thus, not debatable in logical terms.

The only thing I have left to say, there IS difference between some prisoner possibly being given the 3rd degree in the field on an unofficial basis, and our nation blatantly announcing it as an acceptable policy.

[Rich46yo]

What a load of crap. We had wars before, when many more were in harms way, yet mothers and fathers of those who fought, nor the soldiers themselves, did not legalize savagery.

What's so different now?

Haha...really? Other then killing/maiming millions of woman, kids, noncombatants, in WW-ll we were actually quite civil weren't we? Here, hers an example of our civility. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdresden.htm

Americans tortured in WW-ll. If a high value target was caught, and we needed the information, we tortured them to talk. And so did the Brits, the French, the Germans, the Japs, and God knows what the Russians did. Even after the war both Britain and America sent out special hit teams to murder German soldiers and Gestapo who were suspected of torturing and killing our POWs. No trial, no nothing. A bullet in the back of the head. The French & Poles did the same thing. There were very few Japanese POWs not just cause of their Samurai code but also cause our soldiers murdered them in cold blood when they tried to surrender. We shot plenty of Germans who were trying to surrender too, "and so did they".

You really think we would annihilate entire cities and then shy away from torturing an enemy who had vital information?

did not legalize savagery.

Oh man, that is precious. I got a huge laugh from that and I thank you for it. Thats the kinda talk you hear from a country that has about 30 X's the amount of Lawyers it actually needs.

[Yeager]

You really think we would annihilate entire cities and then shy away from torturing an enemy who had vital information?

Fair statement. 

I don't think of water boarding as torture in the traditional sense, but it does indeed appear to fill the requirements as terrifying to the subject.  One point that some of the moral supremacists here fail to acknowledge is that war itself is an act of supreme terror.  Also, what about the very real possibility that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed will be executed if convicted?  Isn't that an act of terror as well.  Ending human life in such a manner.  We are hypocritical and truly immoral if we call these things legitimate, while calling far less things illegitimate.

Its all semantics, I know...but lets keep it real.  We are either going to eliminate the islamic fanatic's movement or it is going to grow like cancer.  One way or the other it will either be defeated or continue to threaten western civilization in greater and greater increments.  No kid gloves with those bastards and my advice to soldiers fighting against those genuine certified barbarians is DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE CAPTURED, or water boarding will look like a walk in the park by comparison.

[DYNAMITE]

Well, Im still waiting for the Japanese WW-ll waterboarding atrocities commited on Yank POWs.

Imagine that? They skewered, cooked, ate, bayoneted, burned, beheaded, infected, gassed, American POWs by the thousands and Dynamite came up with
Well, it sounded good.

I was going to type a whole post but decided not to. All I'll say is that in the entire history of mankind only Americans could be concerned about the rights of terrorists that want to murder them and their families.

Most here dont have kids or kin over there getting blowed up by these scumbags so that makes it easier to poke holes in the air and wax morality.

I bet those that are there, and their kin back here, probably think its a good idea to force high ranking terrorists to give information that would save American, and Allied, lives. Most of all when the methods used are far more humane then what these wretched criminals would do to them.

It's on the previous page buddy... and just as i guessed... you didn't read it.

Oh... and BTW, my family served/is serving this country... and no, none of us think this is a good idea.  (My grandfather fought the Japanese during WWII so you can spare me the history lesson thank you)

Perhaps you would like to take some initiative yourself and bust out the ol google?  Or are you too busy being smug and under informed?

[Gunthr]

I have mixed feelings about it, even though it is quite clear that waterboarding is mental torture.  

I don't want to allow our enemies to have certain knowledge that they will not be waterboarded, (or their loved ones water-boarded while they are forced to watch), or otherwise tortured.  We Americans are already seen to be lacking will as it is.  Why would a hardcore enemy otherwise give up any strategic info?  A determined radical could hold out for a very long time absent something like waterboarding, or more precisely, the fear of something like waterboarding.  This sort of thing could have its place.

And yet, because I despise and distrust big government, I am generally afraid of allowing it to torture anybody, least of all American citizens,  or doing it on American soil.

I liked it better when we knew our CIA would be as ruthless as they need to be, but we never had to know about it.  Maybe I could be ok with this kind of thing if there were very stringent conditions that had to be met before utilizing something like waterboarding.  

There is no question that waterboarding is a bit more civilized than chopping off digits one by one, or jamming a red-hot poker up the poop shoot...  
 

[Pei]

Pooor arguement. Try again
It was terrorism that brought American troops to Muslim soil to begin with

Ah silly me: I thought Iraq was invaded because of it's failure to comply with UN sanctions! All along it was because of the Hussein regime's well attested support for al-Queda...

[Yeager]

Ah silly me: I thought Iraq was invaded because of it's failure to comply with UN sanctions! All along it was because of the Hussein regime's well attested support for al-Queda...

There would never have been American troops in Iraq had it not been for 9/11 and you know it.