The 13 people who made torture possible | Salon News I'd be perfectly content if these 13 people were brought to justice. An interesting article that helps visualize the time line in which everything occurred and who were the key players invloved.
I had a conversation with my dad about this today, because I agree with Obama that it should stop. My dad is pro those techniques, I pointed out that they are illegal and considered to be torture.
Nevermind my original post. Think what you want to think and we'll see what happens right? Either I'm right or I'm wrong. I honestly hope it all turns out well for all of us in the end......regardless of ideology.
It's so easy to badtalk what is known as "torture" today. we need to remember that it wasn't that long ago that diciplining your kids wasn't concidered assault. This society has become namby-pamby and all PC. In the end, best intentions can bring up "unforseen consequences. Has anyone besides myself noticed that the fall of this country coincides with this country loosing it's cahonies?
I remember back in the good ol' days when those negroes knew their place in the cotton fields and the women never backtalked me from the kitchen. But seriously, if you want to claim that we've gone soft because we don't think torture is OK then go right ahead.
I think the argument is that we have broadened the definition of torture to include things like slapping and making people stand up for long periods of time. Putting someone in a cold room isn't torture, nor is making them listen to Metallica. To call that torture cheapens the word.
Straw man? (one of Dick Cheneys favorite techniques) Please show me the person who is calling simply standing up for long periods torture. People have called the combination of many things torture, including a Bush appointed judge (having hard time finding link, posted about it here before). When someone is kept in a small room, smashed into walls, tied up and put on ice, blasted with loud noise, flashing lights, and kept up for 10 days straight, that combination can be easily defined as torture.
Haven't been keeping up with the torture thing. I take it that you are ok with it which is your right.
I generally agree with you on this. On most detainees, I'd say yeah, you're right. I have no problem, however, doing those things to the people that plan to kill civilians. If you're planning on attacking soft targets that have no military value, you and your rights can go down the toilet if it will stop said hypothetical attack from happening. What stinks though is that with every civilian that we accidentally kill, we make more of them that want to kill civilians intentionally. What a vicious cycle. PS: I'm interested to see what information was actually gained. It must have been good intel, otherwise why would anyone keep it secret? If it was garbage, release it and end this whole bullshit. You'd show that waterboarding was worthless.
It is sad. If this is true show us the proof don't just pull stuff out of your arse to make us look bad.
CIA's Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described - ABC News google: 2 seconds. Since you were trying to bust out the logic, what are you considering torture then? Is "long time standing" (good lord that is an awkward term) okay since you don't think its torture?
No one in your link specifically lists 'long term standing' as torture. In your link, CIA Inspector General John Helgerwon makes a generalized statement that the techniques "appeared to constitute cruel, and degrading treatment under the (Geneva) convention," and it is listed as one of the "Harsh Interrogation Techniques", but again, I'm not seeing it called torture by anyone there. Nor can I recall any prominent politician or pundit specifically point to it as torture. Water boarding is, as you know the focal point in this debate, and the issue that has received probably 95% of the attention. And even if some do argue that 'long term standing' is torture, does that some how mean waterboarding is not torture? What is torture? I'm not a legal scholar, but lets see what I can get at. Since America has signed onto the United Nations Convention Against Torture, it must mean America agrees with that definition, right? Lets work with it for now. Obviously the issue becomes what is 'severe pain or suffering.' Is 8 hours of 'long term standing' 'severe pain or suffering?' Probably not. Is 40? It very well might be. The positions are designed to cause pain, to make sure there is no way to get comfortable or even get a break. Combine that with sleep deprivation, which is part of the definition of 'long term standing' and I have no doubt it hurts like fucking hell. Torture? Probably, but I wont make any absolute statements about it yet. Now waterboarding? Go back to the definition our country signed onto. Waterboarding is drowning. Water in your nose and mouth stops oxygen from getting into your body, and if it is kept up, you will begin to swallow water into your lungs, and you will die. I think that not only can qualify as 'severe pain' but it also qualifies as 'intimidating or coercing' the person because you are essentially saying "Tell me what I want to hear or no oxygen for you!" You are drowning someone, it is simply a death threat, with a window into how they will die, and what it will feel like. Do I think that is torture? Absolutely. And history, including American history seems to agree.
No. I'm not Ok with torture, especially when it's done by the oposing side to the young men and now, women we send to do our government's dirty work. War in every way sux. Torture and the way prisoners are treated, should be a quid-pro-quo. You do it to us, we'll respond in kind. Nothing we do compares to what the other side is capable and ready to do because we're not ready to be as ruthless....what would everyone think? You guys seriously do not know any real life VietNam POW's do you? Go find one and ask them, see what they have to tell you about what the "other side" is capable of. As for our country going "soft"? I'm not the only one here that's fed up with PC bullshit, now am I?
Why you guys argue about this is asinine...none of us are going to completely agree with each other yet this shit still comes up. I agree with Whiskas. Our guys get beheaded and the public is worried about torture? Flame all you want but there's no point in having these threads because it just ends up being a google-epeen-fest.
Wiskas, this has nothing to do with the country going 'soft'. Water boarding was considered torture in Vietnam, Korea, WW2, WW1, even when America was engaged in the Philippines well over a 100 years ago. This is about holding the United States to the same moral standards as it has been held to for over a hundred years. To say calling water boarding torture is another part of expanding political correctness is pure historical revisionism.
Moral standards? There are no moral standards in the USA. At least when it comes to making a buck. Read the headlines.
Does anyone think that waterboarding or REAL forms of torture weren't done by us during all of the wars mentioned above? Why do any of you give a shit? Because it was on Bush's watch? Please tell me it isn't just because of that.......that all of a sudden some of you are all up in arms about this. Why is this a story only now instead of during every war we've had. Happy Memorial Day!