Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Leatherneck on April 20, 2009, 07:34:21 PM
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Did you see the rock-star reception he got there? Screams, cheering, girls raising both hands in the air, etc. etc.
WTF is up with that?
He just went public with some classified CIA documents on "torture."
It disturbs me that our supposedly premiere intel organization has caught the Obama bug.
Your thoughts?
TC
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His handlers made sure all the Obamatons were front and center?
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A director there staged a disinformation op and imported a bunch of liberal college kids to make his boss think that the spies love him? =D
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I suspect that like most other government institutions the CIA is stocked to the gills with career burro-crats. Hell, if it wasn't for the tinfoil I might be tempted to think that the CIA fed Bush less than great intel in an effort to discredit him re: WMDs in Iraq.
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The real spooks were out in black space wondering which order might be safe to obey in some future purge.
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The real spooks were out in black space wondering which order might be safe to obey in some future purge.
Exactly. Our enemies cut off heads on cameras, blow up kids and anyone else nearby, execute wounded combatants, etc, etc.
We get called on the carpet if we deprive somebody of some sleep or pour some water in their face.
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Exactly. Our enemies cut off heads on cameras, blow up kids and anyone else nearby, execute wounded combatants, etc, etc.
We get called on the carpet if we deprive somebody of some sleep or pour some water in their face.
Yes. Because we're better, and because we so much better that we don't need to become like them to crush them like the wimpy little bugs they are.
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I didn't say become like them, but I think it would be dishonest to not admit that we are hobbled in our ability to fight by a whining left and it's media bullhorn. We didn't start the fight and we insist on fighting with both arms tied just to prove we won't finish it either.
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I didn't say become like them, but I think it would be dishonest to not admit that we are hobbled in our ability to fight by a whining left and it's media bullhorn. We didn't start the fight and we insist on fighting with both arms tied just to prove we won't finish it either.
Because the only people who oppose torture are leftists?
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Because the only people who oppose torture are leftists?
I did not say that, so don't say I did. I said the left and the media are the ones blowing the trumpet over any imagination of torture. How about answering Longeyes original point and the one I agree with. Now the people on the pointy end of the stick are hesistating while their enemies are not. The people here screaming about waterboarding and Gitmo want us to fail, they crave an emasculated America for some reason I do not understand.
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I am one of those people who oppose Gitmo. I don't want America to fail. I love America as much as any person who lives there.
But in a proper society, the ways in which we deal violence upon our foes and upon terrorism suspects are limited. We prohibit torture. Even in Israel, a country where arguably the threat of terrorism and foreign attack is more imminent than in the United States, acts of torture are generally prohibited by law except in some very, very distinct cases of ticking-bomb terrorists - and Israel is not a free country by any means.
In a proper society, the military is subordinate to the civilian power. The spies and special operatives and Men in Black are not in charge. Reporters, legislators, and voters are in charge.
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One of the first real concepts I taught my son is this word "integrity". About to start working on the girl, not sure if she's old enough to get it yet. He gets it and cries if I say he doesn't have integrity.
As much as I dislike Obama, I agreed with what his speech writers wrote, at least the part I heard on the FNC newsbite. We as a nation have no integrity if we torture people.
That said, after the release of the memos, I think that they went overboard.
Waterboarding....certainly torture. You're causing someone to think they are going to die.
Sleep depravation? Confinement? While uncomfortable and disconserting....certainly not torture.
As for the people on the pointy end of the stick....none of them are being prosecuted for actions they were legally ordered to do under the previous administration.
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Yes. Because we're better, and because we so much better that we don't need to become like them to crush them like the wimpy little bugs they are.
But we don't, and they continue to multiply.
Just read a story where a military ship caught some pirates right after they tried to hijack a commercial vessel . . . the pirates were disarmed and then released.
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Torture is one issue; making public memos that ought to remain confidential is quite another. I think politicizing national security is base and corrupt. One could argue that this kind of behavior reflects a profound lack of integrity. I would.
With the issue of torture we are at the delta of what is moral and permissible and what isn't. Of course many don't believe that what the CIA did constituted torture, but even if we stipulate that it did, for the sake of argument, we are still faced with the issue of when the greater good outweighs the individual bad. It's odd, is it not, that an administration with a left-leaning, putatively collectivist political philosophy would suddenly discover the all-transcending importance of the individual in this one area that underpins all our safety...but not in any others? Why not apply this sanctity of the individual theory to the Second Amendment or environmental concerns, e.g.?
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Waterboarding....certainly torture. You're causing someone to think they are going to die.
Sleep depravation? Confinement? While uncomfortable and disconserting....certainly not torture.
I read some of the memos and while WB was used only on a very limited number of terrorists, one terrorist was WBed over 100 times. Thing is, if you are secure in the knowledge that those doing the WB are not going to kill you or seriously harm you with it, you can deal with it indefinitely.
What the release of these memos (and previous revelations) and the limitation to the Army Field Manual have done is give our opponents the means to train their boys to resist any and all interrogations by us.
This is a Very Bad ThingTM and also a Very Stupid ThingTM.
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I could hear all my friends in The Agency groan when Obama said it was ok to blab because elements of the program had already been leaked. ;/
We would've been courts-martialed if we had tried that. =|
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[if we really want to stoop to there level]i say we should behead the next al-qaeda member we catch on cnn with a pocketknife [/if we really want to stoop to there level]:angel:
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Sleep depravation?
While uncomfortable and disconserting....certainly not torture.
Says you...
Forced lack of sleep is torture. It destroys the body's ability to repair and right its imbalances. Lack of sleep will eventually kill you.
Done day in and night out is wrong.
I thought we has sodium pentothal (sp?) (amongst other drugs) to act as truth serums.
If you personally wanted to torture me into talking...good luck. I have had no training other than the fact that a snitch is a dead man. I know people who have gone to prison in order to protect the guilty party.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_interrogation_memos
Guess I spoke too soon. Poll number sagging? Blame Bush!
AP - President Barack Obama left the door open Tuesday to prosecuting Bush administration officials who devised the legal authority for gruesome terror-suspect interrogations, saying the United States lost "our moral bearings" with use of the tactics.
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Cool.
Maybe I can sue Uncle Sam for the survival school's use of some of those same tactics in training the students.
I had nightmares for a long time afterwards.
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I went for several years on little or no sleep because of the downturn in the photography industry. Can I sue the Bush administration?
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AP - President Barack Obama left the door open Tuesday to prosecuting Bush administration officials who devised the legal authority for gruesome terror-suspect interrogations, saying the United States lost "our moral bearings" with use of the tactics.
Prosecuting the lawyers seems odd to me. If my lawyer (incorrectly) advised me that I can execute anyone trespassing on my property, he might have some liability but certainly not more than I would for shooting the UPS man or something. Personally, I would go after the people that tortured prisoners. Maybe giving your legal opinion as a government official makes for different circumstances though.
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Maybe they simply understand who the most dangerous people really are. They have the same souls. They should know. What are lawyers but hired guns wearing the cloak of "civilization?" Let's not confuse them with philosopher-kings.
That said this profanes the whole concept of law. You can now be prosecuted for devising arguments "the regime" does not agree with?
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One of the first real concepts I taught my son is this word "integrity". About to start working on the girl, not sure if she's old enough to get it yet. He gets it and cries if I say he doesn't have integrity.
You actually have to speak? My Dad could just give me "the look" and I would immediately want the Earth to swallow me. Keep at it. You'll get there. =)
But anyway, there are cases in which a failure to torture denotes a lack of integrity. Sometimes, there is a duty to hurt and kill bad guys, to protect the innocent from their malicious acts. Sometimes, torture is required as a part of that. Any blanket condemnation of torture is small-minded.
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But anyway, there are cases in which a failure to torture denotes a lack of integrity. Sometimes, there is a duty to hurt and kill bad guys, to protect the innocent from their malicious acts. Sometimes, torture is required as a part of that. Any blanket condemnation of torture is small-minded.
Sometimes a bad guy won't crack from just the fire and acid, so we have to bring his kids in and rape and torture them. We don't really want to, but the ends justify the means. ;/ I'd expect better of you fisty.
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When Obama was in Iraq his handlers asked those present who voted for Obama. Those who raised their hands were given a free digital camera. Everyone else was shuttled over to the side. No reason to assume his CIA gig was conducted any different.
2 cents comment--Any discussion of the morality of torture without an agreed upon definition is merely the flapping of lips.
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But anyway, there are cases in which a failure to torture denotes a lack of integrity. Sometimes, there is a duty to hurt and kill bad guys, to protect the innocent from their malicious acts. Sometimes, torture is required as a part of that. Any blanket condemnation of torture is small-minded.
Well said.
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Sometimes a bad guy won't crack from just the fire and acid, so we have to bring his kids in and rape and torture them. We don't really want to, but the ends justify the means. ;/ I'd expect better of you fisty.
I guess I fail to see the similarity between torturing the innocent to save the innocent and torturing the guilty to save the innocent. Just like I fail to see the similarity between shooting the gun-wielding psychopath, and shooting the kid playing in the sandbox.
But thanks for thinking well of me, previously.
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So how do we find out who the guilty guys are? Or is it just a presumption of guilt for any terrorism suspects, because, you know, terrorism is different?
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I'm not talking about torturing anyone suspected of terrorism. Not even most of them. I'm talking about those very rare cases in which we have reason to believe that the clock is ticking, and the subject's withholding information is tantamount to murder.
That's why I compared the situation to that of an active shooter.
And no, I'm not talking about harsh treatment or "advanced techniques."
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Didn't see this posted & discussed, so here it is.
IMO, this is a terrible precedent. The immediate effects on those who prosecute the WOT are bad enough, as the wise will no longer push hard to capture and interrogate the terrorists. What was considered legal can be retroactively deemed illegal and leave one open to prosecution. Also, the giving of one's opinion on law leaves one open to prosecution later when another party gains the executive.
This sort of prosecution for difference of (legal) opinion makes McCarthy look like a piker. After all, he was a mere Senator and did not have the power of the executive at his beck and call.
But, the longer-term effects of using the power of government to prosecute and harass political opponents just out of power for policy differences is even more pernicious.
Once that becomes ingrained into the political culture, we can see politics become a true blood sport, as seen in the less civilized nations. The consequence of an election loss is not just loss of political power, but loss of freedom and personal destruction. Every election night inaugurates a night of the long knives. How long will it be before a political figure decides to go Caesar and not subject themselves to the now-discredited legal/political process?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_interrogation_memos
Obama open to torture memos probe, prosecution
By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer Tue Apr 21, 7:40 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Widening an explosive debate on torture, President Barack Obama on Tuesday opened the possibility of prosecution for Bush-era lawyers who authorized brutal interrogation of terror suspects and suggested Congress might order a full investigation.
Less than a week after declaring it was time for the nation to move on rather than "laying blame for the past," Obama found himself describing what might be done next to investigate what he called the loss of "our moral bearings."
His comments all but ensured that the vexing issue of detainee interrogation during the Bush administration will live on well into the new president's term. Obama, who severely criticized the harsh techniques during the campaign, is feeling pressure from his party's liberal wing to come down hard on the subject. At the same time, Republicans including former Vice President Dick Cheney are insisting the methods helped protect the nation and are assailing Obama for revealing Justice Department memos detailing them.
Answering a reporter's question Tuesday, Obama said it would be up to his attorney general to determine whether "those who formulated those legal decisions" behind the interrogation methods should be prosecuted. The methods, described in Bush-era memos Obama released last Thursday, included such grim and demeaning tactics as slamming detainees against walls and subjecting them to simulated drowning.
He said anew that CIA operatives who did the interrogating should not be charged with crimes because they thought they were following the law.
"I think there are a host of very complicated issues involved here," the president said. "As a general deal, I think that we should be looking forward and not backwards. I do worry about this getting so politicized that we cannot function effectively, and it hampers our ability to carry out national security operations."
Still, he suggested that Congress might set up a bipartisan review, outside its typical hearings, if it wants a "further accounting" of what happened during the period when the interrogation methods were authorized. His press secretary later said the independent Sept. 11 commission, which investigated and then reported on the terror attacks of 2001, might be a model.
The harsher methods were authorized to gain information after the 2001 attacks.
The three men facing the most scrutiny are former Justice Department officials Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury. Bybee is currently a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Yoo is a professor at the University of California-Berkeley.
It might be argued that the officials were simply doing their jobs, providing legal advice for the Bush administration. However, John Strait, a law professor at Seattle University said, "I think there are a slew of potential charges."
Those could include conspiracy to commit felonies, including torture, he suggested.
Bybee also could face impeachment in Congress if lawmakers were so inclined.
A federal investigation into the memos is being conducted by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which usually limits itself to examining the ethical behavior of employees but whose work in rare cases leads to criminal investigations.
The chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary committees said Tuesday they want to move ahead with previously proposed, independent commissions to examine George W. Bush's national security policies.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who has referred to his proposed panel as a "Truth Commission," said, "I agree with President Obama: An examination into these Bush-Cheney era national security policies must be nonpartisan. ... Unfortunately, Republicans have shown no interest in a nonpartisan review."
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has proposed separate hearings by his committee in addition to an independent commission.
Over the past weekend, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said in a television interview the administration did not support prosecutions for "those who devised policy." White House aides say he was referring to CIA superiors who ordered the interrogations, not the Justice Department officials who wrote the legal memos allowing them.
Yet it was unclear exactly whom Obama meant in opening the door to potential prosecutions of those who "formulated the legal decisions." Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked if the president meant the lawyers who declared the interrogation methods legal, or the policymakers who ordered, them or both.
"I don't know the answer to that," Gibbs said during a briefing in which he was peppered with questions about the president's words. Later, he added: "The parsing of some of this is better done through a filter of the rule of law and done at the Justice Department and not done here at the White House."
When pressed about any confusion stemming from his comments and Emanuel's, Gibbs said: "Take what the president said, as I'm informed he got more votes than either of the two of us."
A number of Republicans, including former Vice President Cheney and former top intelligence officials, say Obama has undermined national security with his release of the memos on the matter. On the other side, some Democratic lawmakers, human rights groups and liberal advocates want to see punishment for those involved in sanctioning brutal interrogations — the kind they say amount to torture and have damaged U.S. standing around the world.
"Certainly, this is an attempt not just to stake a ground between the left and the right, but also to navigate through something that he would prefer not be there as an ongoing issue," said Norman Ornstein, a scholar of U.S. politics at the American Enterprise Institute.
"He's walking the tightrope," Ornstein added. "You don't want to give a blanket, `Everything's OK, we're only moving forward.' And you don't want a president making a decision that it is a legal decision."
Obama said he was not proposing that another investigation be launched, but if it happens it should be done in a way that does not "provide one side or another political advantage but rather is being done in order to learn some lessons so that we move forward in an effective way."
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It is being discussed, in the thread that I merged it into... ;)
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It used to be that events like this one were just photo ops for poobahs. With Obama that's been expanded: into lecture ops. He just cannot resist a chance to preach his morality, no matter how absurd, inappropriate, or arrogant.
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Jeez, guys: thanks for hijacking my thread about Obama cultism in the friggin' CIA!
This wasn't about torture.
But I guess it can be...
TC
PS: I take perverse pleasure in the fact that the forum software burps at "Obama." As in, "are you sure that's a real wor =Dd?
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I guess I fail to see the similarity between torturing the innocent to save the innocent and torturing the guilty to save the innocent. Just like I fail to see the similarity between shooting the gun-wielding psychopath, and shooting the kid playing in the sandbox.
But thanks for thinking well of me, previously.
You start with the basis; torture is morally wrong. You then say; but sometimes it's ok. If there are circumstances where torture is ok, then wouldn't those same circumstances warrant other things that are normally immoral? If it's so important and vital that torturing the suspect is ok, wouldn't you also be justified in hurting their family? If not, why? When the basis of your argument is situational ethics, it's hard to see why you're getting uppity over taking them to their logical conclusion.
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You start with the basis; torture is morally wrong. You then say; but sometimes it's ok. If there are circumstances where torture is ok, then wouldn't those same circumstances warrant other things that are normally immoral? If it's so important and vital that torturing the suspect is ok, wouldn't you also be justified in hurting their family? If not, why? When the basis of your argument is situational ethics, it's hard to see why you're getting uppity over taking them to their logical conclusion.
That's only if you start with the basis that torture is wrong.
If you, instead, believe that torture of innocent people is wrong, there is no such conflict, nor is there a situational ethics problem.
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theres an ironic flavor to listening to a country that nuked two civilan populations get all aflutter about a lil torture on a small number of folks to extract info. kinda like the peta folks who eat meat
the more amusing since its primarily a western culture thing
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You start with the basis; torture is morally wrong.
News to me.
Funny that in another thread so many of us were ready to back a cop to the hilt, if he had tasered a kid who socked him in the face. But now, we're squeamish about doing the same thing, when it would actually, immediately save lives.
Yeah, I know, the thread has more to do with the run-of-the-mill interrogation in GITMO, not the 24 sort of scenario I'm talking about. My point is that "torture is morally wrong" as a blanket statement is not realistic. If the use of force is acceptable to protect the innocent, we may well find ourselves needing to use force when the bad guy is in a cell, but is essentially holding a gun to someone's head.
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:rolleyes:
If torture is not morally wrong, why should we limit it to those certain situations?
Stepping away from the theoretical, do you really think if we legalize torture it'll only be used in those circumstances?
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Yesterday at the White House
<brring, brring>
WH Operator--"White House"
Soros--"George, here! Lemme speak to Barak."
WH Operator--"Stand by for the President"
POTUS--"George, how's it hangin', dude?
Soros--"Barak, did you not get the memo? Whassup with you not wanting to prosecute the bad guys in Bush's administration? I thought you were on board with making them pay for implementing so-called torture policies. "
POTUS--"George, I did a little polling and feeling and figured out it would be best not to get all wrapped up in correcting the sins of the past. I figured it was best to just expose the policy and be done with it."
Soros--"Barak, what have I told you about thinking for yourself. Your job is to implement my agenda, not your agenda."
POTUS--"But. . . , but. . . . "
Soros--"We all make mistakes. The paper flow in the WH must be overwhelming. I can understand how you missed the memo. What say you and I forget the past and get on with the agenda. Bush's administration's players need to serve as examples for the betterment of the world we want to create. They can't serve as examples if we don't squeeze 'em in the courts."
POTUS--"George, what laws have they violated. Most of the people you want squashed were offering legal advice. What law was violated? It was advice for cryin' out loud."
Soros--"Barak, get with the program. Either you come down on 'em or I figure a way to take to the world court. . . . kinda like what Spain is trying to do. So here is your decision. Reverse yourself or the glory of prosecution for torturers will go to the World Court. Your choice, bud."
POTUS--"You mean the accolades will go to someone else?"
Soros--"Yup!"
POTUS--"My mind is right. Yessir, yessir, three bags full, sir."
Soros--"I knew you'd see things properly. You do good work, Barak. You're a little inexperienced but I have confidence you'll grow into the job."
POTUS--"Will flipping my decision tomorrow be soon enough?"
Soros--"That will be just fine. Have a nice day!"
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If torture is not morally wrong, why should we limit it to those certain situations?
i might not limit it. we had a low life out here "lost" his girl friends lil boy. he first claimed kid was kidnapped from his truck at walmart when he left the kid in the car. then he claimed he forgot the kid when he left the place where he was cutting wood.
it was obvious he was lying and for a time there was a belief the kid was still alive. the low life clammed up. at that point i would have no problem being real persuasive. i suspect he might have been more forthcoming. as it turns out he had killed the kid for wetting his pants in his truck. killed him stuffed the body in a 50 gallon drum and dumped it in the lake. he finally led authorities to the body in exchange for sentencing considerations. he would not have had that privilege if i coulda helped it. it is indeed a slippery slope lots of things in life that require high stakes judgment calls that would just be one more
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Shoot, if torture is no big deal let's torture everyone! Suspected of kidnapping? Torture! We can't find your partners in crime? Torture! We think you've done other bad stuff? Torture!
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Saw a talking head from some lawyer's organization saying that anyone who waterboarded a jihadi needs to be prosecuted . . . even if the information saved lives.
She was willing to sacrifice American lives to avoid waterboarding a bona-fide bad guy. :rolleyes:
I remember when Jimmy Carter gutted our intelligence services - they never did fully recover. Now Obama seems intent on finishing the job - our operatives will wonder if the leadership has their back - or is going to stab them in the back.
The celebratory vodka is flowing in the Kremlin . . . and Peking . . . and Tehran . . . etc. etc.
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:rolleyes:
If torture is not morally wrong, why should we limit it to those certain situations?
Stepping away from the theoretical, do you really think if we legalize torture it'll only be used in those circumstances?
You could say that about lethal force. Or tasers. Or any number of things. We're not water-boarding people for parking ticket violations, nor is it legal to shoot people for having non-compliant exhaust systems.
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I wonder how far the witch-hunt will go?
I'm retired now, but it's not as if the UCMJ hasn't prosecuted retired military before...
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I wonder how far the witch-hunt will go?
As far as George Soros wants it to go. Make no mistake, Soros is about to inflict vengeance on the Bush family.
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As far as George Soros wants it to go. Make no mistake, Soros is about to inflict vengeance on the Bush family.
Cites, or just wild internet speculation?
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You could say that about lethal force. Or tasers. Or any number of things. We're not water-boarding people for parking ticket violations, nor is it legal to shoot people for having non-compliant exhaust systems.
Well, I guess I'm just one of those cowards who thinks the .gov shouldn't be torturing people.
As an aside, you still haven't answered the pragmatic aspects of your belief. Do you really think the power to torture is one the .gov will handle responsibly?
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Well, I guess I'm just one of those cowards who thinks the .gov shouldn't be torturing people.
As an aside, you still haven't answered the pragmatic aspects of your belief. Do you really think the power to torture is one the .gov will handle responsibly?
Do you think the power to execute criminals is one the .gov will handle responsibly?
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Do you think the power to execute criminals is one the .gov will handle responsibly?
The power to execute criminals is limited - by the power of appeal, by the existence of juries, and so forth.
This is not the case with torture. The people who are being tortured - and may or may not be actually guilty - do not get tried by a jury of their peers before torture is authorized, and in fact, such a trial would be impossible.
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Perhaps the point is just to sow more chaos, leading to more social and cultural disintegration and more internal weakness in America. Soros is the great divider, the great manipulator, and the great short-seller. But when you light fires, you should make sure you have a good escape route; even the best can out-smart themselves.
The real issue isn't "torture," it's power, it's always power. Most of human history is intimately involved with torture; it's always been an instrument of those in control, whether overt or covert. Some cultures are built entirely on forms of what we call torture.
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Perhaps the point is just to sow more chaos, leading to more social and cultural disintegration and more internal weakness in America . . .
Or maybe he just wants to distract us so we won't notice what else he's up to???
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Do you think the power to execute criminals is one the .gov will handle responsibly?
Do executions happen on the decision of one (or a handful) of people, in the field, under pressure, to someone who hasn't been tried or convicted of anything?
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Do executions happen on the decision of one (or a handful) of people, in the field, under pressure, to someone who hasn't been tried or convicted of anything?
Every time a serviceman drops the hammer on a perceived hostile.
1. One decision-maker
2. In the field
3. Under pressure
4. No trial
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Yup.
One man's description of warfare is another man's definition of execution or cold-blooded murder.
You were a Marine, Balog?
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Yup.
One man's description of warfare is another man's definition of execution or cold-blooded murder.
You were a Marine, Balog?
Forgive me if I see a difference between shooting a hostile, and torturing a captive. I suppose those damn Laws of Land Warfare were emphasized too much by those wussy Marines. ;/
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I'm just concerned that you're ok with one type of warfare, but not another.
(Forgive me, my government-paid vacation time in the Green Zone was spent doing something you'd probably not condone...)
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I'm just concerned that you're ok with one type of warfare, but not another.
(Forgive me, my government-paid vacation time in the Green Zone was spent doing something you'd probably not condone...)
Like I said, I just see a difference between fighting and torture.
Also, unless the Air Force had you torturing people I don't know why I wouldn't condone it. Especially since waterboarding is a fuzzy line. Were you doing something worse than that? I didn't think anyone (let alone the Air Force) was breaking bones or hooking people up to batteries in Iraq.
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Forgive me if I see a difference between shooting a hostile, and torturing a captive. I suppose those damn Laws of Land Warfare were emphasized too much by those wussy Marines. ;/
There is a difference, but what you wrote WRT blurred the line between execution and engaging hostile forces. Not sure if it was intentional. Clearly, I am not the only one who read it that way.
Up until recently, the kind of folks for which this sort of treatment is being contemplated were liable to being shot out of hand, according to the laws of warfare.
Anyways, there's torture and there's "torture(1)."
Even assuming the unleaded, fully-caffeinated, no-bull, "beat with a truncheon & zap with a car battery" torture, I think the subject might prefer the torture to a 5.56mm round to the melon at 100m. If some rat b@st@rd knocks my teeth out seeking information, but doesn't kill me, I can get that attended to and live the rest of my life. This is not an option if PVT Snuffy plants multiple 5.56 round in my COM.
For my own part, I think one of the right & proper reasons to prohibit(2) torture, (as opposed to "torture") is not for the sake of the tortured, but for the sake of our men(3).
(1) "Torture" being the more-vigorous techniques that are just fine to inflict on servicemen in training and on a day-to-day basis, but suddenly too brutal to use on terrorists. Joe Jihadi needs his beauty sleep or "we're just as bad as the terrorists," doncha know?
(2) I'll repeat, again, my utter contempt for the "John McCain" view on the legality of torture, whereby our policritters outlaw it so they can claim the moral high ground but assume that our men will use torture if the circumstances dictate that torture might save lives. If they expect our men to do it under those circumstances, their moral course would be to legalize it for those circumstances. Expecting men to not only perform a repugnant task, but do so under threat of prosecution is disgusting.
(3) Oh, not the bullsh!t claim that we ought to treat enemy combatants well or Joe Jihadi will treat ours poorly. Joe Jihadi will mistreat our boys & girls to his advantage no matter what. I suspect that, in the absence of prohibition, torture might become required in some circumstances. That would be a fine way to produce some seriously traumatized servicemen.
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As an aside, you still haven't answered the pragmatic aspects of your belief. Do you really think the power to torture is one the .gov will handle responsibly?
;/ I just did. I think government will handle it about as well as any other necessary and proper task.
Shoot, if torture is no big deal let's torture everyone!
No big deal? Go back and look at what I said.
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Would someone (anyone) please define the term for me?
I look in the dictionaries and read all sorts of stuff about the infliction of pain for the sake of inflicting pain, or causing injury to someone for the sake of causing injury, without any "end benefit". I also read statements about behavior that "shocks the consious" of "civilized" persons. Then I read all of the posts here and the words spewed about in the Intertubes and newspapers which seem to be discussing actions designed to elicit information from a person who would otherwise be unwilling to divulge said information.
So I'm perfused and complexed beyond description.
Folks are getting panties all twisted about stuff that would make the Spanish Inquisition laugh at its softness. Nobody, so far, has told me or anyone else that I normally might meet what plan(s) to harm Americans - or citizens of other nations - were actually discovered in time to 1) foil said plot and 2) simultaneously/contemporaneously apprehend said plotters. It has been told to the press that #1 and possibly #2 as well actually took place, but the specific details were not shared with the public.
I'm just not sure what "torture" means anymore. You guys are not making it any clearer for my poor mind.
Anyone want to take a crack at it?
stay safe.
skidmark
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I'd say techniques causing either: significant physical pain (car batteries etc) or injuries (cutting, fire etc).
The general reason for including waterboarding has been pointed out by RevDisk in other threads. Struggling against bonds often breaks bones, and the sensation of drowning is "significant physical pain."
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Oh and fisty; any techniques you'd be against using on the (suspected) bad guys? Amputation, removing eyes, rape, sodomy? Just curious if your "(suspected) bad guys deserve whatever they get" rational extended all the way.
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Anyone want to take a crack at it?
I'll give it a shot...
Torture: Inflicting pain and mental anguish for the purposes of punishment or coercion.
Torture is not mere discomfort. Torture is agony of the body and/or the mind.
Civilized persons frown on torture because it is seen as degrading to all parties involved. There is a need not to become like those who use torture.
Torture is not a guaranteed means of obtaining information or the truth.
Torture is time consuming. There is an intimacy involved in trying to crack someone.
We're facing an enemy where the use of torture is negligible. If we play nice with them, we're seen as weak. If we resort to torture, we're just as bad.
Torture inspires fear. Fear may inspire cooperation.
There is a chance that the desired information can be obtained through its use.
Torture offers victims the hope of survivability.
And then you get the whole can of worms that accepting the use of torture opens:
Who gets to use it and against whom?
What kinds of torture and how much?
When will it be used and where?
Will it be used against us?
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I'll give it a shot...
Torture: Inflicting pain and mental anguish for the purposes of punishment or coercion.
LS:
I think that much too broad. Under that definition every policeman, drill sgt, NCO, and parent is a torturer.
Just one example: My father was not perfect, but he was no torturer when he paddled my fanny, inflicting pain and mental anguish, in order to coerce me to never, EVER stick screw drivers into the power receptacle.
Similar examples can be drawn for LEOs, and NCOs quite easily.
I'll go one step further: There are times when the infliction of pain and mental anguish for the purposes of coercion is the right, moral, and loving thing to do.
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LS:
I think that much too broad.
Oh well, I tried. =(
And then there's that whole "pain is relative" thing. Paddling your fanny was enough to make you stop sticking screwdrivers in power receptacles (thank goodness) whereas I'd be willing to divulge state secrets for a bag of M&Ms. =D
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I'm glad we are not going to use torture, whatever it is.
But I want to know what we ARE going to use. I mean other than "reaching out" and "engaging in dialogue."
It sounds as if we haven't given up torture, we've given up fighting and even wanting to prevail.
We are too high-minded to destroy pirate strongholds for concern over collateral damage. Our enemies, meanwhile, have no concept of collateral damage at all. In their minds we are all one collective target to be destroyed. We are one neck to sever.
We've gone from asymmetric warfare to asymmetric morality, and, frankly, I consider the whole thing to be an absurd game that could only be devised in the Academy, where innuendo is equivalent to mayhem and rough contact is left to the bedroom.
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You don't want to know, nor should you. Common knowledge is exactly that, and negates any element of surprise if they know just exactly what we're going to do. I could just spit over Obama's latest security breach.
I still consider interrogation techniques as a viable part of the intelligence organ, as distasteful as that may sound to some.
We can all quibble about the morality of interrogation and just exactly how the information should be extracted, but do we really want to discount the value of the timely intel collected from bad actors when the lives of our own sons and daughters are on the line?
It goes back to that saying, "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
Violence can be all sorts of things, all sorts of icky things that make people squeamish or even claim the moral high ground. Some even break down that violence into good and bad violence, to better assuage their conscience. To me, dropping 70K pounds of ordnance on Iraqis hunkered down in their trenches was no better or worse than waterboarding our buddy Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. I'm not so certain Mike Rowe would undertake performing the latter for a Dirty Jobs episode, but it is indeed a dirty job.
If it makes one feel any better, violence is also visited upon those who are selected to perform certain military functions, as a prerequisite to their training. It's not unlike cops getting tasered before they get their tasers issued. I won't go into specifics, but suffice it to say I was ordered to take a week or two's worth of leave after my "graduate" level survival courses to decompress. I was pretty much in shock afterwards for a while, because who would've thought that Uncle Sam could beat up one of their own both mentally and physically in the name of training? Sure, I'd seen the Navy SEALS videos, but they're SEALS, right?
Those same graduate survival courses got myself and several of my fellow USAF/Navy SRO aircrew members volunteered (a military euphemism, if ever there was) at the end of my career to go play in the shithole that was Baghdad, because folks so trained could detect the evasion techniques used by detainees under interrogation, and help steer the questions accordingly.
It doesn't mean you have to be the resident APS warmonger, or even remotely like the concept, but you do what you have to do. LadySmith would make it really easy for me to get info out of her, but I was more than prepared to use the tools and training at my disposal to get answers. Been there, done that, got the tour credit and the fruit salad for my shadow box. Now all I can do is play mind games with my friends and family to either get a rise out of them or elicit answers when they try to be evasive. I've also been known to mess with the mental health folks at the VA during sessions. You'd think they'd learn to look up a vet's DD-214 before jumping in with both feet. =D
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(1) "Torture" being the more-vigorous techniques that are just fine to inflict on servicemen in training and on a day-to-day basis, but suddenly too brutal to use on terrorists. Joe Jihadi needs his beauty sleep or "we're just as bad as the terrorists," doncha know?
1. The person you're torturing is quite likely to be Joe Camelherder instead.
2. The people who undergo torture as part of their military training knowingly sign up for it. Medical personnel review the training process to avoid health damage.
3. Sleep deprivation is not 'just' sleep deprivation. Do it long enough and you'll drive the guy permanently insane.
4. Waterboarding is not 'just' waterboarding. It carries the hazard of permanent brain damage, for one.
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LadySmith would make it really easy for me to get info out of her, but I was more than prepared to use the tools and training at my disposal to get answers.
Please put away your tools and training. I'm on the verge to confessing to your avatar right now. :O
=)
All kidding aside, thank you for sharing the perspective of someone who's actually BTDT.
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1. The person you're torturing is quite likely to be Joe Camelherder instead.
2. The people who undergo torture as part of their military training knowingly sign up for it. Medical personnel review the training process to avoid health damage.
3. Sleep deprivation is not 'just' sleep deprivation. Do it long enough and you'll drive the guy permanently insane.
4. Waterboarding is not 'just' waterboarding. It carries the hazard of permanent brain damage, for one.
MB
First and foremost, RTA(1). IOW, spend the time to read the docs BHO dropped. You might make fewer ill-informed statements after having done so.
1. Oh, for the love of Pete, stop assuming our folks in service are Evil Bastards who seek to pick up random peasants and beat the snot out of them or are Stupid Bastards and take any random tip and start in on the guy hammer & tongs.
Second, it is not torture(2), to use any of the enhanced techniques so described in the classified document dump. You would know this if you RTA.
Last, "quite likely" is a fuzzy term, but indicates great probability. Given the thousands of folks picked up over the years, the filters at various stages, the very small proportion of that first number to end up in Guantanamo or similar locations, and the small number of those terrorists documented to have been given vigorous interrogation, you really think it was "quite likely?"
2. The very few terrorists who get the more vigorous techniques are also self-selecting and have had the techniques in questioned review by med & psych personnel. RTA.
3. Forced calisthenics are not 'just' calisthenics. Smoke Joe enough and you'll work him to death. As with many things, at some point a difference in degree can become a difference in kind.
If one had RTA, one might know that the terrorists were monitored by med & psych personnel. Also, that this risk was considered, the input of med & psych types sought, and strict limits placed on the use of these techniques so as to prevent serious physical or mental harm to the terrorist.
4. This was known and taken into consideration and would be known by all who had RTA.
(1) Read The Article.
(2) Not torture from either the legal or practical POV. If you RTA, you would have gleaned the first, at the least. Matter of fact, you would have known that the legality of such techniques was what initiated the discussions.
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2. The people who undergo torture as part of their military training knowingly sign up for it.
Ok, I wish I knew the curriculum before I went through the school, but that's known only to the staff and graduates, none of whom talk about it beforehand (for good reason). It's a pass/fail system, and if you fail, you don't fly certain missions and platforms, period. The unit commander personally apologizes to each and every graduate during debriefing on the last day, and your fellow crewmembers and graduates will commiserate over a beer upon your return, but in the end you have to gut it out. It's a necessary evil, for the eventuality that one may get shot down and captured by governments unfriendly to the U.S., or singled out for special attention on a hijacked commercial airline flight overseas.
You may never need to use the training, but it's burned into your gray matter regardless, just in case. My ex-wife tried to shake me awake from a nightmare less than a week afterwards. I woke up with my elbow and forearm crushing her neck as I pinned her to the floor in the bedroom. Neither she nor I could believe that I was capable of such sub-conscious actions.
Trust me, it's not on their website, and I'd have serious second thoughts about that career path had I known what was coming my way.
We had guys with anxiety attacks when the instructors came to our squadron every year or so for refresher training - myself included. No leaves allowed, if refresher training wasn't accomplished, that individual was grounded from flying until it was.
Sleep deprivation is nothing, and there's a shopping list of techniques besides it and waterboarding, so don't get hung up on those two as some sort of egregious examples of mankind's ability to extract information.
Jfruser speaks Truth with regards to the selection process for interrogation. They aren't your garden variety Welcome Wagon hostesses, not by a long shot.
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And now Obama plans to regale the world, again, with photos of supposedly abused detainees.
I'm convinced that the sudden thrust into the world spotlight of alleged American-inflicted torture serves only one true purpose: to destroy what's left of America's belief in itself as a moral--and more to the point--morally exceptional nation. It is the next step in the multicultural mission.
A moral "system" that equates a terrified man to the loss of a city isn't a system at all, nor is it moral; it is a form of malignant narcissism, a terminal form of megalomania that has, truly, "lost its moral bearings."
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It's a necessary evil, for the eventuality that one may get shot down and captured by governments unfriendly to the U.S., or singled out for special attention on a hijacked commercial airline flight overseas.
I don't understand why people bring this up as if it means anything in relation to what is or isn't torture. We train our people to resist torture. Part of that training involves basically torturing them - and because of this when we do it to a prisoner it isn't torture?
The final irony: the torture techniques around which the SERE training was devised were used by Chinese interrogators during the Korean War, not to gather actionable intelligence but to force false confessions from captured U.S. soldiers — confessions that could then be used in anti-American propaganda
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The rising hue and cry about torture, fomented by a small number of people with a less than moral agenda (IMHO), is itself a form of torture, a way of waterboarding the American body politic. Life is full of grim ironies.
***
What happend at Abu Graib, we are now being told, was "systemic and widespread"--in other words, it is as American as baseball, apple pie, and mom.
Funny the same people who want to unmask our inveterate villainy refuse to address the systemic and widespread barbarity in the cultures with whom we have so many ongoing problems.
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I'm trying to understand your argument G98.
Are you saying that anything we do to extract intel is ok? That you have no moral problems (that there are indeed no moral considerations at all, merely pragmatic ones) with anything that is done to captured suspects? That, in other words, the ends justify the means? I really am curious if I'm misinterpreting, because that seems to be your point.
Oh and fisty, are you planning on answering me? You think it's moral cowardice to not torture the (suspected) bad guys if we really really need to, right? That is your contention? So I was just wondering if you (and the others who've supported you) would care to clarify that belief.
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I think torture is something that, when used properly, leaves irreparable physical and/or psychological damage. Pain, discomfort, and stress are not considered torture unless they meet the first definition....
For example, waterboarding under medical supervision is not torture.....repeatedly drowning and reviving someone who later dies of fluid in the lungs is....
...and using drugs under medical supervision to ellicit information is definitely NOT torture....in fact, it's much more reliable than torture....it's EFFECTIVE....
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Back to the original point.
I've just had another thought.
Many people are pointing out that by releasing our techniques, Obama has allowed the terrorists to prepare for such techniques and, consequently, they will be less successful.
For example, putting a terrorist in a box with a bug seems less likely to work now.
As much as I hate conspiracy theories, what if that was the intent of the administration?
They don't want the techniques to work. Since they think it's immoral, they are going to release what we do so that we will be unsuccessful in the future with these techniques.
The fact that it was successful in the past doesn't matter. They will do whatever they can to stop it and if it means aiding the enemy, so be it.
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Ah.
Speaking the unspeakable.
Speculating that maybe perhaps our goals and some of the goals of the people now in power might be at odds?
This one will be a hard one for a lot of Americans to get their minds around. We have not yet reached a critical mass of either understanding or outrage.
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Hanlon's Razor. I won't rule out malice, but I view stupidity as way more likely.
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I've said more than enough from my perspective.
We do what we do, for reasons that are obvious to some, not so obvious to others.
It sickens me to think that we've suddenly grown a conscience after all these years, thanks to Obama & Crew.
Had we known KSM would've talked with just a plate of milk and cookies in front of him, well...
(LadySmith, you need not fear me nor my avatar. You've already been through your own special kind of hell, too.)
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I guess it is my fate to remain perfused and complexed regarding the use of the term "torture by both youse guys (yinz if from Pittsburgh, all y'all if'n from the South) and the current administration. It seems nobody can get beyond "enhanced interrogation."
I have known a few folks who were the receipents of what I consider to be torture, and until I met them I had considered some of the behaviors of my parents to be at least bordering on torture. (No, I am not merely moaning about being grounded or spanked a tad vigorously.) I do not consider any of the stuff mentioned so far to be torture, as all of it has a component that goes beyond the infliction of physical and/or psychic pain purely for the purpose of inflicting said pain. Even what gw98 has thankfully declined to share in summary, let alone detail, seems to have had a purpose beyond the mere infliction of pain.
Maybe it is because of my experiences (personal and vicarious) that I am looking at the term differently from the vast majority of those discussing it. If that's the case, I guess the best I can make of it is to be glad that youse guys (yinz, all y'all) have not learned that there may be a difference.
From my perspective, those who receive "enhanced interrogation" are for the most part those who self-select for the experience. Some of those self-selecting in may be purposely attempting to waste the time and resources of our intelligence-gathering community, but by and large they also seem to self-select out of the expereience sooner rather than later - meaning that it is fairly easy to determine who has nothing to say as opposed to figuring out how to encourage someone with something to say to reveal that information.
As for the moral high gound-edness of enhanced interrogation - I'm just not sure that can be appropriately determined until we have a situation where a Bad Thing happens that we know for a certainty could have been prevented if we had found out about it before it happened. I'm not willing to allow that to happen. Some of you seem to be more willing to allow it to take place.
stay safe.
skidmark
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Remember, folks - if G98 ever comes into your house with a Neti Pot, run the other way. :laugh:
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I suppose I just lack the moral courage to be utterly pragmatic. I'm sure torture can be very effective. I know for certain just killing all the damn Iraqis would be even more effective, but again there's that annoying morality thing. I really do think there needs to be a guide other than "Just do whatever you have to."
I have known a few folks who were the receipents of what I consider to be torture, and until I met them I had considered some of the behaviors of my parents to be at least bordering on torture. (No, I am not merely moaning about being grounded or spanked a tad vigorously.) I do not consider any of the stuff mentioned so far to be torture, as all of it has a component that goes beyond the infliction of physical and/or psychic pain purely for the purpose of inflicting said pain. Even what gw98 has thankfully declined to share in summary, let alone detail, seems to have had a purpose beyond the mere infliction of pain.
Yeah, we had a guy in my unit a lot like that. He'd rationalized his Dad beating his ass as a good and normal thing. What was your point again? We can do anything we want, as long as we claim "it's for the greater good" or "weh ad no choice."
As for the moral high gound-edness of enhanced interrogation - I'm just not sure that can be appropriately determined until we have a situation where a Bad Thing happens that we know for a certainty could have been prevented if we had found out about it before it happened. I'm not willing to allow that to happen. Some of you seem to be more willing to allow it to take place.
Ever thought of what kind of fed.gov is bred from allowing torture? A hell of a lot more people have died from .gov saying "we just do what has to be done" than every terrorist attack (and every war fought with terrorist regimes). The cure can be worse than the illness.
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My observation is that the "torture is always wrong crowd" are mired in overly-bureaucratic thinking, the notion that everything has to be always one way or always the other way. It relieves them of the burden of thinking critically about the particulars of the specific situation. Much easier to mutter an unthinking platitude and pat yourself on the back for being right.
Truth is, circumstances matter.
Killing someone can be either wrong or right. It depends on the circumstances. Likewise, inflicting pain one someone can be both wrong and right depending on the circumstances. Heck, even doing nothing at all can be wrong or right, depending.
I think fistful hit upon a critical point. There can be circumstances where torturing someone would be the right and moral thing to do. Not following through with it in those circumstances would be immoral.
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Meh, some things really are always wrong. There is a difference between consensual sex and rape, which is where we agree. But you are saying rape is ok, in certain circumstances; in fact, given those magical circumstances it's the only moral thing to do! All killing is not wrong, but all murder is. All inflicting pain is not wrong, but all torture is.
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Your sex example makes my point quite clearly. It's a perfect example of how circumstances matter. Sometimes sex is ok, sometimes it's immoral, it depends on the circumstances.
The circumstances determine whether a specific instance of sex is consensual vs rape. Without considering those circumstances you cannot possibly form a proper judgment about whether it was right or wrong.
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We all look back of the interment of Japanese during WWII as wrong, what's so different about this?
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The people who become the targets of "torture" are people who probably know more than they fight. It is therefore predictable that people who build their lives on "knowing" rather than fighting would find "hard interrogation" the most fearsome thing in the universe. It is not the most moral people who rail most against torture, it is the most cerebral.
Even Hamlet, that most iconically western of men, used psychological torture--theater of cruelty--to trap his step-father and ended up with buckets of blood on his hands.
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Your sex example makes my point quite clearly. It's a perfect example of how circumstances matter. Sometimes sex is ok, sometimes it's immoral, it depends on the circumstances.
The circumstances determine whether a specific instance of sex is consensual vs rape. Without considering those circumstances you cannot possibly form a proper judgment about whether it was right or wrong.
Uh, no. Sex=inflicting harm. Torture=rape. Some things really are always wrong.
By the way, I notice the "Yay torture" crowd refuses to answer my simple question. Is there anything you would consider out of bounds to do to a (suspected) bad guy? Well heck, let's take rape. If your beating someone and hooking htem up to a car battery isn't working, it would be ok to rape the suspect if you thought it'd break their will enough for them to talk, right? Just gotta do whatever is necessary, and the ends justify the means, right? I find generally when you espouse a principal but aren't willing to actually follow it out to it's logical conclusion that says something.
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By the way, I notice the "Yay torture" crowd refuses to answer my simple question. Is there anything you would consider out of bounds to do to a (suspected) bad guy?
[joe_pesci]You talkin' to me?![/joe_pesci]
I suspect you and I are on the same page, when it comes down to it. I am willing to call no-bull torture out of bounds, period.
If it were not, we would have to develop guidelines for the legal yanking of thumbnails, electroshocking of genitalia, rape by dogs, etc. and charge folks with executing the same. No thanks, make that illegal and make it understood that not only are they out of bounds, but that we will not think less of men who refuse to do them in the gravest of extremes (the exact opposite of the disgusting John McCain expectation that the men in question will break the law).
As for the new-fangled "torture," that defines anything more vigorous than harsh language as "torture," I do not cede the point that sleep dep, WB, what-have-you is torture as practiced by our folks IAW DOJ guidelines as described in the latest document dump.
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We all look back of the interment of Japanese during WWII as wrong, what's so different about this?
That thing about assumptions....
http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Internment-Round-Up-Americas-Terror/dp/0895260514/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240689375&sr=1-2
Product Description
This diligently documented book shows that neither the internment of ethnic Japanese--not to mention ethnic Germans and Italians--nor the relocation and evacuation of Japanese Americans from the West Coast were the result of war hysteria or race prejudice as historians have taught us.
From the Publisher
Everything you've been taught about the World War II "internment camps" in America is wrong:
- They were not created primarily because of racism or wartime hysteria
- They did not target only those of Japanese descent
- They were not Nazi-style death camps
In her latest investigative tour-de-force, New York Times best-selling author Michelle Malkin sets the historical record straight-and debunks radical ethnic alarmists who distort history to undermine common-sense, national security profiling. The need for this myth-shattering book is vital. President Bush's opponents have attacked every homeland defense policy as tantamount to the "racist" and "unjustified" World War II internment. Bush's own transportation secretary, Norm Mineta, continues to milk his childhood experience at a relocation camp as an excuse to ban profiling at airports. Misguided guilt about the past continues to hamper our ability to prevent future terrorist attacks. In Defense of Internment shows that the detention of enemy aliens, and the mass evacuation and relocation of ethnic Japanese from the West Coast were not the result of irrational hatred or conspiratorial bigotry. This document-packed book highlights the vast amount of intelligence, including top-secret "MAGIC" messages, which revealed the Japanese espionage threat on the West Coast. Malkin also tells the truth about:
- who resided in enemy alien internment camps (nearly half were of European ancestry)
- what the West Coast relocation centers were really like (tens of thousands of ethnic Japanese were allowed to leave; hundreds voluntarily chose to move in)
I have also found that those of Philippine heritage are not so sympathetic to the tale of woe that is the usual for this topic.
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Sex=inflicting harm.
ur doin it rong =D
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[joe_pesci]You talkin' to me?![/joe_pesci]
I suspect you and I are on the same page, when it comes down to it. I am willing to call no-bull torture out of bounds, period.
If it were not, we would have to develop guidelines for the legal yanking of thumbnails, electroshocking of genitalia, rape by dogs, etc. and charge folks with executing the same. No thanks, make that illegal and make it understood that not only are they out of bounds, but that we will not think less of men who refuse to do them in the gravest of extremes (the exact opposite of the disgusting John McCain expectation that the men in question will break the law).
As for the new-fangled "torture," that defines anything more vigorous than harsh language as "torture," I do not cede the point that sleep dep, WB, what-have-you is torture as practiced by our folks IAW DOJ guidelines as described in the latest document dump.
Yeah, I wasn't talking to you.
ur doin it rong =D
Or right; you're just not sex-positive enough. :angel:
Also, answer the question shifty. :P
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Shifty yourself. Did you ever consider I had better things to do, and just quit reading the thread before you asked the question?
You haven't understood what I've tried to say thus far, so I shouldn't bother. But to repeat myself, I only approve of torture in cases where the "detainee" is essentially holding a gun to someone's head. Given that, if you're confronting someone with a gun to the head of an innocent person, what would you consider out of bounds? If, in some bizarre way, you could take down the bad guy by inserting a red hot poker into a major orifice, zapping his man-parts with voltage and chopping off his ears, while having rats gnaw off his face, would you do so?
Tell me how far you'd go to stop someone from killing an innocent person, and that's probably how far I'd go, too.
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The real issue, with the civilized world under hammer and tong from so many angles, is why "torture" would become such an obsessive concern, throwing far more repercussive issues into the shadows. My answer to that is simple: it is the Left's way of demoralizing the American people and discrediting our entire set of values while simultaneously distracting us from their real agenda.
We had better get our true priorities in focus. Soon.
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Shifty yourself. Did you ever consider I had better things to do, and just quit reading the thread before you asked the question?
You haven't understood what I've tried to say thus far, so I shouldn't bother. But to repeat myself, I only approve of torture in cases where the "detainee" is essentially holding a gun to someone's head. Given that, if you're confronting someone with a gun to the head of an innocent person, what would you consider out of bounds? If, in some bizarre way, you could take down the bad guy by inserting a red hot poker into a major orifice, zapping his man-parts with voltage and chopping off his ears, while having rats gnaw off his face, would you do so?
Tell me how far you'd go to stop someone from killing an innocent person, and that's probably how far I'd go, too.
I understand you, I just disagree. And I think there needs to be a basis for our actions aside from just "what will accomplish the results we want?"
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You don't understand at all what I'm saying, as your last statement proves. What I'm saying is, if we can taze a person just to stop them from resisting arrest, or we can kill someone to keep them from harming someone else, then torture is acceptable in some very limited cases. Torture doesn't need to be justified by some new set of principles, nor is it a case of the ends justifying the means. Rather, it is already rendered acceptable and even morally required, by principles which are already well-established. at least by those of us who approve the use of force under the usual circumstances.
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Putting the arguments aside for a moment, does what GW98 said mean that he's going to be prosecuted by the Obama administration? :O
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From what I understand so far, they're going after the Bush-era policy makers only.
I don't know how much of a circus Obama & Crew want to make of this, but that could change.
It would be interesting to see the administration prosecute all of the actors, from the DCI down to the Gitmo guards.
It would make the Nuremberg trials look like a walk in the park, and how would one seal testimony to protect classified methods and sources on something so wide-scale? Even prosecuting just a few Bush-era legal hacks will be bad enough.
Methinks they'll scapegoat a few members of the Bush legal team to assuage their collective consciences, and then feel justified enough with that to go no further.
I could be wrong, and have been before. Regardless, I'm holding off on calling my buddies in Air Staff for RUMINT until CNN tells me otherwise.
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Methinks they'll scapegoat a few members of the Bush legal team to assuage their collective consciences pander to their base, and then feel justified enough with that to go no further.
As an expert scapegoat, I FTFY.
I could be wrong, and have been before. Regardless, I'm holding off on calling my buddies in Air Staff for RUMINT until CNN tells me otherwise.
Hee-hee, RUMINT, hee-hee. =)
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I did not say that, so don't say I did. I said the left and the media are the ones blowing the trumpet over any imagination of torture. How about answering Longeyes original point and the one I agree with. Now the people on the pointy end of the stick are hesistating while their enemies are not. The people here screaming about waterboarding and Gitmo want us to fail, they crave an emasculated America for some reason I do not understand.
I guess I have a different definition of torture than you do. "Interrogation" is sitting at a table, and you ask me questions. "Torture" is when I say "I can't tell you anything else," and you then proceed to abuse me to force something out of me.
Be honest -- when that boatload of British Navy types were grabbed by Iran some months ago, basicly they were detained separately, deprived of sleep, and perhaps not fed three squares ever day. They were reported as having been "tortured." Yet you want to claim that waterboarding and other "harsh interrogation techniques" aren't torture? Gimme a break. If you would complain if you were the subject -- it's torture. If I had been captured in Vietnam and subjected to waterboarding or some of those other forms of "harsh iterrogation techniques" -- I'd be telling people I was tortured.
We can't hold the moral high ground if we adopt a double standard. Anything we would call torture if done to our people has to be acknowledged as torture if/when we do it to the other side.
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Truth is, circumstances matter.
qft
remember the officer that was shafted for "torturing the prisoner? pointing his sidearm at him and firing it close by his head implying next round would be 10 ring did it to get some immediate intel in order to better bring more of his guys home intact. guy wasn't hurt beyond tinitinitis though my memory is foggy they may have smacked him some.some pusillanimous witness squealed . in my book he walks with thanks and we gig abscam jack in his stead
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That thing about assumptions....
http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Internment-Round-Up-Americas-Terror/dp/0895260514/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240689375&sr=1-2
I have also found that those of Philippine heritage are not so sympathetic to the tale of woe that is the usual for this topic.
heck count me as a 1/2 japanese with relatives that were in those camps who understood em. inot happy about em but understood em
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If you would complain if you were the subject -- it's torture.
Oh, so every prisoner everywhere is being tortured on a daily basis?
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After 5 pages, this one's passed the silliness quotient.