Cheney confirms that detainees were subjected to water-boarding. W/Garphic Video!

Man, you've really got to learn when and how to use 'hyperbole for effect', because that was just absurd. Water boarding is as bad as the Huns, Whats next, waterboarding is as bad as being a nazi

It isn't hyperbole. If you were more observant you would have realized that. None so blind as those who will not see.

Well, it's nice to know the even though the 9/11 Commission said 9/11 was a lack of imagination, we haven't lost our lack of imagination when it comes to forms of torture. The techniques at Abu Ghraib were pretty creative, too. Doesn't it make you wonder what they do in the "secret prisons" if they are willing to admit to waterboarding?

A couple people have said after waterboarding they will tell you anything. So then how do you decifer what is legit info and what is "just stop and I'll tell you anything you want to hear?"

I do however agree with waterboarding Cheney. That would be karma.

Originally posted by Nygdan

Man, you've really got to learn when and how to use 'hyperbole for effect', because that was just absurd. Water boarding is as bad as the Huns,

Whats next, waterboarding is as bad as being a nazi

Well, how about this...

Water boarding is about as bad as I could think of for me.

or

Water boarding is about as bad as I can imagine my child going through.

or

Water boarding is as bad as getting your nuts electrocuted (if not worse).

Maybe it should be put as...

Water boarding is as bad as being dunked repetitively until you firmly believe you are drowning.

or

Water boarding is as bad as being repetitively smothered almost to passing out and each time thinking that's the end.

or

(being a severe asthmatic as a child) Water boarding constitutes the extreme and unhyperbolic description of "my life is being taken away from me because I can no longer breathe".

Water boarding is certainly torture...I read somewhere that the top Al-Qaeda guys could only stand about a minute of it before breaking down. But it is not considered torture by the Bush administration...still, is it really any less humane than what the Iraqi fighters would do to a captured American soldier?

Apparently the same type torture was not considered torture 2 centuries ago either:

Women witches were strapped into a seat which hung from the end of a teeter-totter type contraption. The victim was dunked into a river or pond. Not only could the temperature of the water kill the victims, but they were often left underwater for as long as 5 minutes or more. The ducking stool was used in America for witches, and in Britain for the punishment of petty criminals and prostitutes.

cool - we're going backward.

Originally posted by Valhall
Water boarding is as bad as getting your nuts electrocuted (if not worse).

Heck no, this reporter volunteered to be water boarded, and then held a conversation afterwards. When someone volunteers for that other stuff, then maybe there's something to consider.

Water boarding is as bad as being repetitively smothered almost to passing out and each time thinking that's the end.

And what exactly is so terrible about that that the US shouldn't do it?
We go over to foreign countries and fire metallic bullets into people's flesh as a way to kill them. We use bombs that suck out all the oxygen in a room and fill it with fire. Waterboarding is perfectly permissible. I wouldn't want to be water boarded, but, heck, apparently even this reporter volunteered to be water boarded, and was none the worse for it afterwards.

Shoktek
is it really any less humane than what the Iraqi fighters would do to a captured American soldier?

Thats not much of a standard. Water boarding isn't torture. We slap around our detainess to get info out of them.We make them stand out in the cold, we make them perch on one foot for hours, we deprive them of sleep for days, we pump them full of drugs, and we pour water down their throats to make them think they're going to die. Tough on them. But thats a far cry from cutting off their fingers, or pulling their limbs out of socket, or bludgeoning them and pushing their eyes out. Thats torture. We're not doing that.

[edit on 30-10-2006 by Nygdan]

Originally posted by Nygdan

Originally posted by Valhall
Water boarding is as bad as getting your nuts electrocuted (if not worse).

Heck no, this reporter volunteered to be water boarded, and then held a conversation afterwards. When someone volunteers for that other stuff, then maybe there's something to consider.

Water boarding is as bad as being repetitively smothered almost to passing out and each time thinking that's the end.

And what exactly is so terrible about that that the US shouldn't do it?
We go over to foreign countries and fire metallic bullets into people's flesh as a way to kill them. We use bombs that suck out all the oxygen in a room and fill it with fire. Waterboarding is perfectly permissible. I wouldn't want to be water boarded, but, heck, apparently even this reporter volunteered to be water boarded, and was none the worse for it afterwards.

Shoktek
is it really any less humane than what the Iraqi fighters would do to a captured American soldier?

Thats not much of a standard. Water boarding isn't torture. We slap around our detainess to get info out of them.We make them stand out in the cold, we make them perch on one foot for hours, we deprive them of sleep for days, we pump them full of drugs, and we pour water down their throats to make them think they're going to die. Tough on them. But thats a far cry from cutting off their fingers, or pulling their limbs out of socket, or bludgeoning them and pushing their eyes out. Thats torture. We're not doing that.

[edit on 30-10-2006 by Nygdan]

Man. Do you ever have a twisted view of things. You compare one form of torture to another that is much worse, and then try to convince people that, since it isn't as bad, then it really isn't torture. It's absurd to define torture by such insane extremes. If you do that then you could claim that many forms of torture are not torture at all. You could then say that breaking someone's arm is not really torture because it's not as bad as sawing their arm off. Or you could claim that burning people with a branding iron is not really torture because it isn't as bad setting them on fire.
You are defining torture by madmen's standards. Even in prisons there is a more sane boundary to what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Originally posted by Nygdan
Thats not much of a standard. Water boarding isn't torture. We slap around our detainess to get info out of them.We make them stand out in the cold, we make them perch on one foot for hours, we deprive them of sleep for days, we pump them full of drugs, and we pour water down their throats to make them think they're going to die. Tough on them. But thats a far cry from cutting off their fingers, or pulling their limbs out of socket, or bludgeoning them and pushing their eyes out. Thats torture. We're not doing that.

It's a simple idea: It's called the moral high ground. And in a civilized world, the moral high ground is on the side of the victor just as in WW2. The person who devalues the other persons life, is the one who is losing the war, and any victory will be hollow. It is obvious to all but the dimmest bulb, that what we see in this video is indicative of much worse which we don't see. Obviously when the camera is off, and the interrogater gets a cash spiff to break the guy, he's going to break him. --Of course the fact that the victim probably isn't even a terrorist like so many of our detainees, makes no difference. Torturing innocents is the price we have to pay to validate the lives of our 3000 WTC dead, right?

You mention the things muslims do to their prisoners, but we already knew how crazy they were when we tried to get involved with Operation Ajax in the fifties (colossal failure) and then onward with "The Database" which became Al Qaida.

If you really want the war to be won, it has to be done in the same way it was lost, i.e. with ideas that motivate the heart. That's what EVERY soldier is motivated by. Don't you get it? AQ was created by the US fanning the flames of revolutionary thinking and we used their hearts and minds to create AQ, and now the only way to solve it is to do the same thing, but with an aim toward peacefulness. We are the ones encouraging Muslims to hate us because we have had that goal from the start of this century (the US) and all we would have to do is approach them in the opposite way, and this fighting would end. We could easily have peace and live comfortably with the world's muslims if only the executive branch wasn't geared toward constantly goading the enemy toward war.

If my enemy is barbaric, they will never be changed by application of barbarism on my part. They will only be changed by being won over to the side of civilized behavior.

What is and isn't torture shouldn't even be debated upon. If a large group of people (ie: the majority) think that something is torturous then it should be illegal, especially by the US (which is supposed to be benevolent).

So... if it doesn't do any lasting physical damage, it's not torture? What about all of the psychologically damaged soldiers. Call it shell-shock, battle fatigue, or post-traumatic stress syndrome, soldiers come back from war with psychological conditions that leave no physical mark, but destroy that person's life. I've known of soldiers who fight for their country in unimaginable conditions, then come home and are so messed up they sometimes end up living on the streets or committing suicide.

Torture shouldn't be measured by physical pain, but by the amount of abuse, physical or otherwise, that someone endures, and must carry with them through the rest of their life. So waterboarding doesn't equal torture - what if someone innocent is waterboarded, and from that point onward, carries a severe psychological hang-up about getting near water? Isn't that "permanent" damage?

There's also the problem of reliability. The Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials should be enough evidence that anyone will say anything, just to make the torture stop.

Any information garnered is, by the very means it was collected, automatically suspect.

The US has taken it upon itself to spread "Freedom and Democracy" to the unenlightened, but in the process, the US government has taken unprecedented action to limit the freedom of the American people (as well as completely removing even the most basic freedoms from non-citizens), and has systematically reduced our democracy to an neo-fascist oligarchy.

Majority means nothing in the US anymore, and the president himself made it clear when he stated "I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best."

We've lost the democratic "representative of the people" that the American people attempted to elect. What we have now is someone who has said himself that he doesn't care what the people think, know, or want, because he's going to do what he thinks is best.

Patriotism in America has been transformed into support of the President, not support of the nation and it's ideals. Criticism of the President is tantamount to treason in some circles.

So the president decides what is right and wrong, he decides what is and isn't torture. Noone has the power to criticize him, or alter his course of action. What if the President is misguided, wrong, evil, or harbors some alternate agenda? The republican-led congress will not stand against the President out of fear of dividing the party, and losing power, so the people suffer in the end.

Things which have been considered torture for hundreds of years are not, all of a sudden, nolonger torture because Bush wants to find some way to torture someone and not have it called torture.

am i the only one here who thinks its difficult to get answers from suspect when they have a wet rag stuck in their mouth...

The definition of torture doesn't just include causing physical pain, but psychological as well.

My $0.02

Originally posted by Shoktek
Water boarding is certainly torture...I read somewhere that the top Al-Qaeda guys could only stand about a minute of it before breaking down. But it is not considered torture by the Bush administration...still, is it really any less humane than what the Iraqi fighters would do to a captured American soldier?

If Bush says its not torture then he must be right [sarcasm off]

I wonder when he will be volunteering for a round of water-boarding. To here him tell it, its fun for all ages.

You people need to quit being SISSYS if I ever have to undergo torture I would love it to be the type that has gone on at AbuGrab or Water boarding. Take a look at oh say the last 2000 years and you will see that by definition these things would not even fall under the same catigory as real torture. The problem now is that to many of you collage yuppies only know pain and suffering as something you have seen on a video game. What would you do if lets say some skinhead kidnaps your child and tells you that you have 24 hours to find him or they will die. Now assuming that you have captured the Skinhead how many hours do you feed him milk and cookies to try to find out where your child is? Remember 24 hours. It would take me about 6-8 if he was a real hard case.

en.wikipedia.org...
Also Terrorist do not fall under the GC and do not follow it.

Originally posted by factfinder38
.......tells you that you have 24 hours to find him or they will die. Remember 24 hours. It would take me about 6-8 if he was a real hard case.

I believe this is called the 'ticking timebomb scenario', and it is simply laughable.
You must be watching too much 24 or something.
As I said earlier, torture has no place in a civilized world. Can you name one great world leader that was pro torture?
Do some 'factfinding' and tell me where Abe Lincoln, George Washington, Jesus Christ, Ghandi, or Socrates stood on the torture debate, then compare that with say Stalin, or Hitler, or Mao.
To advocate torture places you on the same level as the terrorists.

Also Terrorist do not fall under the GC and do not follow it.

Yeah, because the GC just deals with human rights, and everybody knows the enemy isnt human.
Just for the record Im no college yuppy.

Originally posted by factfinder38
What would you do if lets say some skinhead kidnaps your child and tells you that you have 24 hours to find him or they will die. Now assuming that you have captured the Skinhead how many hours do you feed him milk and cookies to try to find out where your child is? Remember 24 hours. It would take me about 6-8 if he was a real hard case.

I fail to understand why people make up ridiculous hypotheticals when trying to defend torture.

In a situation such as this, or where someone was gonna blow up the world, then yes I think torture should be used. But that's not what it is being used for. Like someone said earlier, it's being used to force confessions and false information out of people. Not to prevent the nuke from blowing up new york.

Originally posted by forestlady
Even Wikipedia calls it torture.

Even Wikipedia?

Don't get me wrong, I like Wikipedia, but we're not talking about the difinitive source of all things legal and ethical. Wikipedia is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."


[edit on 2006/11/5 by GradyPhilpott]

All you people who are saying that waterboarding is so fair, isn't torture, etc etc, need to do one thing before you talk about it again...try being waterboarded. We'll see how long you can last, and how glad you will be that you were "only waterboarded" as torture. You can go ahead and compare it to barbaric medieval practices, and that does nothing for your argument. We're supposed to be past that point, and as a civilized nation, trying to pave the road of the future by example, we are obviously beyond those times (or we should like to think so). I'm not saying that some of these guys probably don't deserve to be tortured so we can find their terrorist buddies, but at least come out and admit that it IS torture. Don't try to say that it isn't unless you've actually experienced it. I agree with the woman in that video that we need to stop debating about what is or isn't torture, and just agree upon which methods of interrogation are acceptable, and which methods are unacceptable.

If you can laugh afterward, it's not toture.

Originally posted by closettrekkie
I'm not sure how I feel about this. Obviously they are not drowning...
I'd really like to know what people suggest we do to get critical information? Maybe we could give them a prime rib dinner and a glass of wine?

Anyone here an "Alias" fan? I've been forced by some female friends..

I think that using hypnosis or some kind of brain scan technology would be much less painfull (abiet perhaps more morally unjust), and allow for interrogations to happen with little to no recolection from the suspect. They would have no idea their brain was hacked and info taken.

This however would open an entire can-o-worms about human mental privacy rights. People would begin to program themselves to only remember things when certain phrases were said to "unlock" memories...

Maybe i'm just to much of a sci-fi nut though, who knows...