'Damn right' I personally ordered waterboarding: Bush

WOW do you have a personal mission to try and get President Bush or something? Waterboarding is a perfectly acceptable method to get information from prisoners especially when it concerns national security. Waterboarding is one of the less torturous means used to gain information. The Iraq, China, Iran, Pakistan army uses much more violent and permantly damaging techniques. We are at least civilized enough in our techniques to not use electricity, bone breaking, teeth pulling, burning, ect. I personally wouldn't have a problem with gaining info by any means necessary in cases where it would save our soldiers lives. Anyone who has a big problem with waterboarding has apparently lived a sheltered life in fields of flowers and honey where everyone is nice to everyone else. Ironically it's those people who are more apt to act physically violent towards others when something happens they don't agree with.

Originally posted by airspoon
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

If I were told lives could be saved by torturing a criminal, for the sake of the lives that could be saved I'd be inclined to do the same. But I admit that's conjecture at this point.

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." --Thomas Paine
US patriot & political philosopher (1737 - 1809)

Tell me this then, are the 9/11 hijackers justified in their actions, simply because they too were probably told it would save lives in the long run? There is a reason that we have moral principals and set standards based on those principals.

Tell me, were the Nazis justified in their torture? What about the Soviets, Iranians or North Koreans? I'm sure the citizens of those countries who also participated in torture believed that their cause was justified too.

I dunno, hard decision to make.

It's not really. You do what is right, otherwise you are no better than those you are fighting against. What would then give us the right to fight or argue against their cause or moral principals if our own are no better?


--airspoon

I see your point. But in my opinion, This isnt the first, nor the last time that a world leader will admit to changing the rules of the game.

War used to be fought with honor, and strict rules of engagement. Remember when troops would line up and march towards an enemy, taking turns firing, not even attempting to take cover? The first American militias learned the guerilla style tactics from the Native Americans. When the British realized the Americans weren't playing fair, and utilizing snipers to target officers, they were appalled. It was considered a war crime of its day. It didnt take long for the rest of the world to catch on and adopt the same methodology. Yet, countries seldom formerly declare war anymore, and everything is so ambiguous, its no wonder people torture each other....

My point being, torture seems to be a fact of life. I'm sure every government on earth engages in it to some extent. Yes, mostly behind closed doors, and mostly with people we have never heard of, and will never know about. So, perhaps you're right, in thinking that the way you treat P.O.W's, will probably directly affect the way your own men will be treated if captured. But even with that being said, I can guarantee that you would much rather be a prisoner held by U.S. forces than oh say....Syria, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea?

In a perfect world, torture would be laughable, because it would be some mythological method that was never needed.

Sadly, there are very evil people out there in the world who have nothing better to do than to sit and plot ways to hurt others. Sometimes you have to man up and make tough decisions for the greater good. The tough part is you wont know if it was the right move or not until after its been done.....

reply to post by Bunken Drum


Yes I could. I understand very well the difference of being put in a situation. I've been in that situation. I have been the victim of torture. Sure it was a domestic violence situation, but I know good and well what it feels like to be broken and have the law do NOTHING because a cop wasnt there to see it. There was nothing more than his word against mine. I personally believe we all have what it takes to be a psychopath. We all have our breaking point.

As for this man being innocent. PLEASE!!! Do you really thing that they just plucked an innocent fella off the street or something? Courts let the guilty go more often than you care to believe in your perfect lil world because of technicalities, lawyers, and plee bargins. I thank GOD that we had someone in office at the time who saw a man who was guilty, and took what information they could from him to save lives.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

We waterboard our OWN soldiers in Special Forces training. (Navy SEALS, Marine Recon..)

Yes, I know. Like I said tho, a soldier being trained can quit @any time & is in a very different position to someone who has no idea if/when they'll ever be released, if/when the torture will stop & if they will be killed by it.
Get it this time?
MASSIVE DIFFERENCE

Originally posted by baked
I do not like Dubya one bit, but I have to say. I see no problem with torture as a means to collect raw intelligence. We have to do what we have to do sometimes. You can bet that if he had spoke up about it before, and not lied. Nobody would have cared.

What do we have to do and when do we have to do it? Right now there are Americans being attacked for one reason and one reason only. They represent the people that torture. I see no reason for any American to be in that position and it fills me with absolute disgust that a soldier can be blown to bits by someone angry with them because of a decision made from a comfy office in Washington and you sit behind your computer screen and defend it. We have tortured INNOCENT people in the name of freedom. Many of you obviously do not care about that and that is just fine. I do indeed care about our men and women in harm's way. They are not being attacked because we wear blue jeans or listen to rock and roll music.
FBI Interrogator: torture did not produce actionable intelligence

I tend to go with people that know a little more about, especially when there is not one bit of credible evidence to refute it.

One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.

It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.

There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

Sure if we have a bad guy and he gets a little abused, I can see looking the other way. That is not what is happening here. We are taking anyone we can and doing whatever we like and then just hoping it all works out. When you actually have a real bad guy in custody and he already gave up all he had to give, waterboarding hime almost 200 times in one month despite knowing it yields no results only sends one message to the more moderat among what we would call out enemies. It tells them that what they hear about us is correct and that fighting against us makes sense. More enemies are born because someone watching 24 wanted to feel macho while a real soldier hits an IED made by some kid who hates America because he now believes the propaganda of the extremists because how could he not.

reply to post by Dantas

WOW do you have a personal mission to try and get President Bush or something?

Great work.

Now you just blew my cover!

Originally posted by Submarines
reply to post by rusethorcain

 

I understand your point. Unfortunatley the terrorists don't follow the rules.

If they did, I would have a different view. But the kidnapping, and beheadings of civilians is just too much for me.

And not to forget these suicide bombers that just take out everyone, no matter of age, race, or sex. The terrorists tossed out the rule book.

edit on 11/5/2010 by Submarines because: posted before I finished my thought...

Rational is rational, is rational....

Still wrong.
Immediate gratification but certainly very self defeating and disastrous in the long run.

Justifying something does not make it right.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
We waterboard our OWN soldiers in Special Forces training. (Navy SEALS, Marine Recon..)

Serious question here. Please answer me honestly as I would really like to know.
Would you be ok with a stranger taking you focibly from your home and stabbing you?

reply to post by rusethorcain


So you are saying its OK for the terrorists to do what ever they want, and we should be nice to them and ask those that we have in prison for their help. So then they can excersise their 5th ammendment privilage.

Double Posts

Originally posted by airspoon

There we have it, a confession to war crimes, though I doubt that any justice will ever be served.
--airspoon

www.rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

edit on 4-11-2010 by airspoon because: (no reason given)

Justice to be served??
Like the justice for the Christmas crotch bomber? What if that bomb had gone off over Detroit??
Justice as in the half dozen planes the were coming over from Britain loaded with liquid explosives??
Justice as in the Printer bombs that were found recently in several aircraft??
I've said it before and I'll say it again, your a coward and your pretense of a man wearing a military uniform goes beyond your cartoonish attitude, it's a disgrace to all men who wear the uniform.
I applaud all the men and women who have taken the necessary, and not attorney defined , or legal, actions
to keep America safe. Their I sad it! Your a coward and the American Bar Association is allowing citizens to be stripped of their rights.
No Star, No Flag, just FAIL!

reply to post by airspoon


What about child rape George? Did you order that to?
warisacrime.org...
I guess it would be pretty effective way to get intel. But sodomizing young boys in front of their mothers was way way over the top dude! Isn’t the only reason we were in Iraq because of some lie you perpetrated to?

I wish Obama would release the abu ghraib children footage, and maybe people would start to wake up and realize that everything you say on the phone or internet is recorded and monitored. That the authorities peer into your home and car without cause or warrant. That people are just disappearing and if seen again telling tales of secret prisons and torture. What does it take to realize that the America values like privacy and freedom are gone now and that piece of # did it!

Come on George tell the truth. Did you setup 911 to? You know actually I dont think you did. You could kind of tell when you were full of sh*t.

F*ck you very mcuh George! You took the America we all knew and loved and made a police state of it.You should face a war crimes tribunal for raping those kids! Hell we would have gone to Iran if you had just asked! I'm sure Sadam would have loved to have us in place of losing his head, and the tallywhacker's who would have cared.

Originally posted by airspoon
President George W. Bush admits for the first time in his new memoir that he personally approved the use of waterboarding, a technique in which an interrogator simulates drowning on a suspect. The method, which most describe as torture, has since been banned by the Justice Department.

Originally posted by airspoon

There we have it, a confession to war crimes, though I doubt that any justice will ever be served.

Ok, so maybe I'm not incredibly well-versed in this area (mainly because pouring water on the face of a terrorist to get information that would save thousands of lives is nothing to complain about when they would sever your fingers off and put a bullet in your head/your family's heads for similar info)...but doesn't your article contradict your statement?

If the method wasn't banned by the Justice Department until afterwords, then how was it a crime? How can you break a law that didn't exist until after? Or can I write someone a ticket for speeding before speed limits were instituted, too?

Think what you want, there were no more attacks during his watch. Period.

reply to post by Soldier of God


Doesnt surprise me, I'm sure he had a hand in the whole thing to begin with.

Originally posted by Bunken Drum
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

We waterboard our OWN soldiers in Special Forces training. (Navy SEALS, Marine Recon..)

Yes, I know. Like I said tho, a soldier being trained can quit @any time & is in a very different position to someone who has no idea if/when they'll ever be released, if/when the torture will stop & if they will be killed by it.
Get it this time?
MASSIVE DIFFERENCE

Actually, I got your opinion the last time. You've presented a moot point, the person's perception doesn't change reality. In reality, the person will not die or be harmed.

Originally posted by Curiousisall

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
Nice conjecture there, but just because KSM didn't know of future attacks doesn't mean he didn't have the potential to know of future attacks.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

Way to miss the point. He had already given up the only information he was going to and they knew that torture was not going to get actionable intelligence. No conjecture. It was well known that torture does not produce any good intel and never has but maybe they just forgot for a moment? Then again, that sounds a lot like conjecture on your part. I am going to stick with the reality of what is and was.

And likewise, I'm going to state emphatically again. If I had reason to believe I could potentially save thousands of lives by waterboarding a terrorist then I'd do it. And not apologize for it. Even to save one single life I'd do it.

Originally posted by Curiousisall

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
We waterboard our OWN soldiers in Special Forces training. (Navy SEALS, Marine Recon..)

Serious question here. Please answer me honestly as I would really like to know.
Would you be ok with a stranger taking you focibly from your home and stabbing you?

Of course not. I'd be upset. Anyone would.

Let me ask you a hypothetical now:


If you're wife and children were kidnapped and you had the person responsible in your kitchen tied up to a chair and knew they'd be killed by lets say a bomb on a timer in the next 1 hour. Would you agree to waterboard the kidnapper to try and make him tell you where your family was being imprisoned with the bomb?

Or would you just hope he had a change of heart and decided to tell you the location on his own?

Originally posted by Informativeme
Why will no one defend Bush? We were attacked and if water boarding had even a chance of squeezing any information out of enemies than I am all for it. People wanted us dead, and he was trying to protect us by gaining knowledge. Even if it wasn't to protect us do you all think he would authorize something like this just for the heck of it? He was trying to protect our country and all of us are QQ'ing about the way he tried to carry out protection for our country.

Torture is an effective method of interrogation. Is it humane? no.. But sometimes we should be able to sacrifice that for our own protection.

edit on 5-11-2010 by Informativeme because: Used past-tense wanted present in QQ line

First off, Bush allowed the attacks to happen.
Water boarding is not a way to get information from the "enemy" but a method of extreme torture.
People want us dead, yes, but you don't torture them or slaughter them creating New enemies.

Get a grip

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
And likewise, I'm going to state emphatically again. If I had reason to believe I could potentially save thousands of lives by waterboarding a terrorist then I'd do it. And not apologize for it. Even to save one single life I'd do it.

And again I am going to point out that we are not talking about you but we are actually talking about people that knew full well that torture was not going to save a damn person and did it anyway. I truly hope you can eventually come to see the difference.