Bush vetoes ban on harsh interrogation

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Maybe you aren't naive, but you certainly have placed more emphasis on torture than you should have. So far we have only officially waterboarded 3 people, and the intelligence we gathered from this was so-so. We are still doing pretty good overall in the WOT.
 
Well, one of us is very naive, and I'm pretty sure it isn't me.
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How is that? What's to say we can't win without resorting to torture?

The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency has clearly stated that the Army field manual gives his people the tools they need to protect us.

We can indeed win and keep our humanity.
 
For a cruel or inhuman psychological technique to rise to the level of mental torture, the Justice Department argued, the psychological harm must last "months or even years."
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Of the sort that John McCain exhibits from time to time, for example.
 
According to that definition, if waterboarding simulates drowning, then it would be torture.
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Balderdash.

I underwent "simulated" drowning when I had a stupid-mistake malfunction in my scuba gear a number of years ago. It was very alarming and unsettling, but it didn't result in psychological damage lasting months or years. In fact, once I corrected the mistake I continued my dive and made a second dive later in the day.
 
What traditional characteristics do you think it lacks?
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Physical pain and physical injury.

We are suppposed to better than they are.
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I hate Hate HATE this statement. It makes absolutely no sense because it judges us solely on our actions and not our motivation.

For example, sucker punching someone has been universally regarded as fighting dirty. The same with biting, eye gouging, kicking someone in the nards, and pulling a weapon in a fist fight. However if I'm getting mugged, there isn't anyone who would look badly upon me for using ANY of these things to defend myself.

What is determinative of whether an action is right or wrong is the persons motivation, and not solely their action.

In other words, we are better than they are because we don't kill innocent people, blow up buses or cafes, or fly buildings into planes. We go out of our way to respect the "feelings" of others by doing stupid things like not fighting in mosques or carpet bombing al quaeda havens.

Our moral position is in no danger or being usurped by al quaeda. To suggest otherwise is simply not reflective of what is going on.

So far we have only officially waterboarded 3 people, and the intelligence we gathered from this was so-so
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Based on what? EVERY report that has been given says that the intel was great and there was lots of it.
 
We need to be more concerned about the silly photos that BORED servicemembers take. A horrible example would be having kids hold up signs saying that their mother/sister/cousin/whatever was sexually assualted by the platoon in the photo with the kid. These invariably make it to MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, etc. and end up as enemy PR.
Our culture, and by extension, our humor, is not that of the Arab world. THEY don't find it funny, and things like that ARE damaging to our moral standing... in the ARAB WORLD. All photos like that do is make someone who was indifferent to our being in their country and make him or her hate us. That's what we ought to be worried about.
Do I like the use of torture? No... and not on moral grounds. History has proven that people will say or agree to anything to make the pain stop. Read up on the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trails, the Crusades and then try to support torture (in general) as a viable source of info. We, however, do not use medieval methods even at our "harshest." What we call a "harsh interrogation" today would be child's play to an Inquisitor.
Chemical interrogation is much more effective, and much more morally defensible, but it can not be used on all detainees. Some people are allergic to certain truth agents, and can die from them. Waterboarding is a (believe it or not) safer method of information extraction than chemical interrogation, b/c often allergies are not known until too late. That's why it is used.
 
We are suppposed to better than they are.
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We are.

The instances of waterboarding that I'm familiar with are isolated, targeted events used to gather intel. The people who were waterboarded are, to the best of my knowledge, still alive, healthy, and none the worse for wear for the experience.

On the other hand, the terrorists saw off peoples' heads simply because they captured them. It doesn't matter whether you are an American civilian, a soldier, an aid worker, a Korean Christian, a Hindu, or a Buddhist. Just indiscriminate beheadings that leave behind dead people.
 
millions of womens have been raped, most return to normal functional status. Certainly, most remain alive and healthy after the experience.

Please don't misconstrue my statements as lack of concern for rape victims. It is a horrible crime. I have no tolerance for it. I support giving rapists the death penalty. But if we are going to say physical harm and physical injury are requisite for something to be considered torture, then you must not consider it torture to tie a woman up and rape her in front of her husband.
 
What seems to be lost here is that the terrorists who are (and should be) the object of torture are cowardly murderers. They would jump at the chance to behead you and your family, or me and my family. They would have no qualms about eviscerating you on the street in front of your house and dancing on your entrails.
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I haven't read all the posts since last night yet but I wanted to respond to this one.

I hope you are not confusing my belief that torture is not an effective method to retrieve information as a desire to not harm the terrorist. I have no compassion for the terrorists what so ever. I am a firm believer of beheading them all once hey are found guilty or claim responsibility for an attack that claimed American lives...but if our goal is too keep them around as a source of accurate information, physical torture is not an effective means to achieve that goal.

Then you also have the unfortunate reality that when torture starts to become acceptable you start to develop a mentality where it is okay for "force" a confession out of the guilty and innocent alike. In a society that demands someone to blame, and the true perp cannot be found, it is too tempting to offer up a sacrifice by forcing an innocent to become the focus of societies rage and to deflect criticism of not doing your job if you are the one responsible for finding them.
 
millions of womens have been raped, most return to normal functional status.
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That's not what I said, and you know it. Your comment shows you don't know any rape victims, because if you did you'd know your comment is wrong on many levels.

A close friend of mine was raped repeatedly by her stepfather. To say she's none the worse for wear for the experience is insulting. If you truly believe what you wrote, try convincing a rape victim of it.

As I've written in other posts, as a former naval aviator I'm also familiar with waterboarding. There is no way I would ever compare waterboarding as being anywhere near as bad as being raped.
 
As I've written in other posts, as a former naval aviator I'm also familiar with waterboarding. There is no way I would ever compare waterboarding as being anywhere near as bad as being raped.
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Have you ever been raped? If not, how can you compare?

The point was previously made (not by you, Whyte) that torture does not occur in the absence of physical pain and injury. Thus, waterboarding is not torture. I disagree. I beleive that you could force someone to have sex with someone else without causing physican injuyr. It would, of course, cause mental injury. If you really believe torture only involves physical injury, then you must be ok with forced or simulated sex acts, mock executions, etc.
 
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