AG nominee "unsure" about waterboarding
- Thread starter oldbillthundercheif
- Start date
- Status
Maybe we should snowboard them instead. Maybe they'll have so much fun, they'll forget about killing us, stay out on the slopes too long, and die from exposure.
Nah! Then we'd feel bad about not bringing out blankets and hot cocoa to the friendly, intolerant, suicidal, women-and-child-killing, head-sawing fanatics.
Nah! Then we'd feel bad about not bringing out blankets and hot cocoa to the friendly, intolerant, suicidal, women-and-child-killing, head-sawing fanatics.
Whtye, so how did these enemies become so motivated? Not all muslems are thusly motivated. Torture one very motivated enemy and his brothers and cousins who might have thought he was a zealot and out of his mind now start to believe him and you have a whole clan to replace the one you tortured.
Torture is wrong and harmful to the soul. Our country can't take that many more hits to it's soul without sustaining some serious damage. It's easy to be the good guys when doing so doesn't cost anything. Much harder when something important, even lives, are at stake.
Torture is wrong and harmful to the soul. Our country can't take that many more hits to it's soul without sustaining some serious damage. It's easy to be the good guys when doing so doesn't cost anything. Much harder when something important, even lives, are at stake.
Since we don't currently torture people, it can't be torture that motivates them.
What truly motivates them isn't the big, bad US. The motivation goes back to the Crusades. We think it's strange to have such a view of history, but not all cultures think like us. To insist that other cultures adopt our way of looking at the past is an insult to other cultures and a hazard to us.
Lots of reasons for the motivation. But to think the US is the source of it all is to think too highly of ourselves. Plus, the facts don't support it.
What did the US do to make the Taliban so mad at us that they decided to destroy 2500-year-old Buddhist temples in Afghanistan? What did the US do to make the extremists so mad at us that they decided to kill Hindus in Kashmir? What did the US do to make the extremists so mad at us that they decided to kill people all across the globe who scarcely have any dealings with us, if at all? To blame everything on us to to ignore reality.
Bottom line: What motivates them is that we are not like them. And that explains the problems across the globe, because a lot of other cultures are not like them.
If folks insist on defining sleep deprivation (some of which goes on during military training) and waterboarding (some of which goes on during military training) as torture, then why were these things not considered torture for at least the past 20 years? Perhaps we'll have to agree to disagree. But I think all this uproar over sleep deprivation and waterboarding is being fabricated by people who don't want us to fight effectively while still maintaining our morality. And I think some of this uproar is created by our enemies masquerading as concerned citizens and trying to swing public opinion.
People claim that our government is acting like a puppetmaster to control us. And I don't doubt that's true to some extent (and has been for a long time). But folks, our government isn't the only group acting like a puppetmaster. Does anyone really think the terrorists aren't sophisticated enough to conduct their own brand of psychological warfare? Doesn't it make sense that they would fight tooth-and-nail to get us to abandon effective techniques? Isn't it realistic to expect that not every person claiming to be morally outraged really is morally outraged?
oldbillthundercheif
Moderator
The training stuff is always going to be a little different than the real deal. Deep down inside you know that the guy slapping you around and doing his best interrogator impersonation is not out to harm you seriously.
It's not the same thing as jerking some schmoe off of the battlefield and sending him off to Egypt with a bag on his head to be tortured by sadistic bastards who are definitely planning to cause serious harm.
It's not the same thing as jerking some schmoe off of the battlefield and sending him off to Egypt with a bag on his head to be tortured by sadistic bastards who are definitely planning to cause serious harm.
Last edited:
DonR101395
New member
I'll play along. Following your logic, if you volunteer to engage in terrorist activities knowing that if you are caught there is a possibility that waterboarding will happen to you; you have volunteered for waterboarding
Now it makes perfect sense to me......First way to cause a person to dig their heels in and never revise their position... say "You are wrong."
Second way to cause a person to dig their heels in and never revise their position... insult their intelligence.
I actually agree with your view on the subject yet your method of discussion only ensure protracted argument and no possibility for a mutually acceptable resolution.
Agreed. When I hear about starvation carried out to the point of death, beatings, bamboo hammered under finger nails and other such "interrogation techniques" which had previously been considered torture I'll be concerned.
Again though, can't we drug them with the addition of sleep deprivation?
I believe the Soviets developed methods for interrogation using sensory deprivation... Wanna bet Putin still has the details?
Interesting to note that the most practiced torturers of the 20th and 21st century seem to be cultures that are NOT European or American based... This is what people miss here. Japan in WWII, Korea, Viet Nam and the latest slew of Islamic fundamentalists have a completely different view of the value of human life.
We are fighting a culture that has no problem flying aircraft full of innocent civilians into buildings full of the same then hacking off the head of a reporter who was dumb enough to try and tell their story... We are essentially fighting a foe who has no problem biting, kneeing genitals, stomping someone when down and eye gouging while we feel the need to obey Marquess of Queensberry rules.
We are fighting a culture that has no problem flying aircraft full of innocent civilians into buildings full of the same then hacking off the head of a reporter who was dumb enough to try and tell their story... We are essentially fighting a foe who has no problem biting, kneeing genitals, stomping someone when down and eye gouging while we feel the need to obey Marquess of Queensberry rules.
Unregistered
Moderator
I am amazed so many people are living with so much fear that they are willing to yield the moral high ground so easily.
DonR101395
New member
I'm amazed at the number of people who live in a fantasy land that somehow being "morally superior" will protect them from a known threat.
Unregistered
Moderator
I suspect some people think there are things more important than self preservation.
If waterboarding is OK, why has the US condemned others for using it?
If waterboarding is OK, why has the US condemned others for using it?
JuanCarlos
New member
An outdated concept, of course. Things changed on 9/11.
Or, in other words, people became more afraid than they had been in decades.
You seem to be forgetting about the Nazis and pretty much any Communist regime in Europe with that blanket condemnation of non-European cultures. Now, just because you might think that non-European cultures are barbaric savages is no reason to overlook the barbaric savagery of Europeans as well.
If waterboarding isn't torture then it should be perfectly acceptable to use it in US police stations to question suspects, even witnesses ("hey we're not really hurtin him!").
I think you both missed the part where I wrote that our techiques had to be used under narrow, specific, and monitored circumstances.
The argument "If waterboarding isn't torture then it should be perfectly acceptable to use it in US police stations to question suspects, even witnesses" makes the illogical argument that if something isn't torture, it's okay to do it all the time. But that sort of limited thinking obviously isn't true. The equivalent would be to say, "If life-in-prison is okay for the crime of murder, it should be okay for all crimes. After all, crime is crime."
But we all know that some crimes are worse than others, and we all know that the punishment should fit the crime. Therefore, the techniques used against those involved in committing mass murder should also fit the crime.
We already allow various levels of intrusion into people's personal spaces, depending on the circumstances. A policeman who reasonably believes that criminal activity is happening can "Terry Stop" you and frisk you if he has articuable reasons to think you have a weapon. However, he can't search you for evidence of a crime. If he arrests you, he can search you and take you into custody. If a jury convicts you, you can be put into prison. If you murdered someone, you can be put to death. Each more serious step has a more serious consequence. It's a spectrum of responses to a spectrum of problems.
Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and the like are not run-of-the-mill interrogation techniques. Thus, capturing some schmoe on a battlefield or arresting someone for speeding doesn't warrant these more serious techniques. Some schmoe isn't likely to have the info we need, so using those techiniques against him wouldn't make us that much different from our enemies. However, I'm not aware of anyone on our side who advocates such indiscriminate use of these techniques. Instead, the emphasis is on interrogating those involved in committing mass murder who do warrant more serious interrogation because they're involved in more serious acts with more serious consequences.
By making these distinctions, applying the techniques in narrow categories of cases, using a limited number of specific techniques, and monitoring our application of them so as to prevent misapplication, we demonstrate how we are different from those who seek to kill every one of us.
Your moral high ground = thousands of dead innocent men, women, and children but 0 waterboarded terrorists.
My moral high ground = thousands of living innocent men, women, and children but some waterboarded terrorists.
I'm more comfortable with my moral high ground. In fact, a high ground that favors terrorists over innocent men, women, and children seems immoral to me.
Glenn E. Meyer
New member
Expediency for personal survival and gain isn't really what folks mean by 'moral'. It is taking the hit but maintaining principle that stakes out the high ground.
If you want to use such techniques for personal gain (like survival), let's acknowledge that we knowingly violate moral principles. It is hypocritical to say otherwise.
By saying such actions are moral, you are really just trying to convince yourself that it was OK to violate moral principles.
Be honest. If I tortured someone to save my child, I will admit that I violate some of my abstract moral principles knowingly. I won't claim that the act was not in violation of moral principles against torture. Utilitarian arguments don't make for a strong moral code.
I take it then the waterboarder fans here again would also all these techniques to be used on Americans in times of an American generated terrorist crisis.
Stand up and say that - and then rant about the 2nd Amend. being the first freedom. :barf:
If you want to use such techniques for personal gain (like survival), let's acknowledge that we knowingly violate moral principles. It is hypocritical to say otherwise.
By saying such actions are moral, you are really just trying to convince yourself that it was OK to violate moral principles.
Be honest. If I tortured someone to save my child, I will admit that I violate some of my abstract moral principles knowingly. I won't claim that the act was not in violation of moral principles against torture. Utilitarian arguments don't make for a strong moral code.
I take it then the waterboarder fans here again would also all these techniques to be used on Americans in times of an American generated terrorist crisis.
Stand up and say that - and then rant about the 2nd Amend. being the first freedom. :barf:
- Status