Hitchens' voluntary waterboarding

Fear makes people do amazing things, like abandon their principles. It really doesn't matter if the type of torture you choose doesn't cause any permanent damage, it's still torture.

You can't act like the bad guys and pretend to still be the good guys. You might fool yourself, but you won't fool anyone else.

Arguments will be made that torture works, and that American lives hang in the balance; but safety, security and expediency can be used to justify ANYTHING. Those who advocate such measures should go study history and see where such justifications lead. You start on that slippery slope and before you know it, the good ole US of A will be a place Mao, Stalin and Hitler would be proud to call home. These guys didn't spring into power fully formed as totalitarian dictators, they started small, with public safety measures, and exaggerated claims of some great, nebulous enemy.
 
This is a fantastic thread, thanks to everyone here, I've learned a few things. Water boarding is fascinating to me because it serves as kind of a fulcrum that balances what we need to do to win, and going too far in an effort to win.

IMO it was inevitable that we'd go too far after the first plane hit the WTT, we always do. But I believe that our decency, and our superiority is demonstrated when we react to our excess- when we debate it. Regardless of how you feel about this issue take pride that you live in a society that is divided by it.
 
You can't act like the bad guys and pretend to still be the good guys. You might fool yourself, but you won't fool anyone else.
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The bad guys don't waterboard. They kill people in a slow painful manner and the broadcast it for the world to see.
 
IMO it was inevitable that we'd go too far after the first plane hit the WTT, we always do.
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Like the internment of the Japanese-Americans in WWII, the red-baiting of the 50s, and the FBI intimidation of the civil-rights movement, we will look back on this period in some years and shake our heads in deep regret. As you said, fear makes people lose their moral bearings, which makes it all the more important to be one for those who is willing to stand up.

That is why Hugh Thompson, who stopped the My Lai Massacre with his helicopter, at great personal risk, is one of my greatest heroes.

At any rate, the fact that you are arguing morality tells me that you don't have much else.
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That is a pathetic statement. Morality is at the very heart of this issue. The practical issues as to technical legality, or the incredibley negative downstream effects for American power in the future are, frankly, secondary. You have completely danced around the issue.
 
I am yet to see anyone protest debating the subject of torture as a form of torture, as it certainly is. We are being tortured with repetitive complaints about hypothetical injustice. Where's your morals there? I also see none of the same people being rightly appalled by the slavery of the tax structure. Where's the "slavery is immoral" crowd? Oh yeah...silent when it's not politically convenient.

Hypocrites and cowards.
 
Like the internment of the Japanese-Americans in WWII, the red-baiting of the 50s, and the FBI intimidation of the civil-rights movement, we will look back on this period in some years and shake our heads in deep regret. As you said, fear makes people lose their moral bearings, which makes it all the more important to be one for those who is willing to stand up.
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Again, all irrelevant. What the government does to american citizens is not the same as what they do to foreign terrorists.


That is a pathetic statement. Morality is at the very heart of this issue. The practical issues as to technical legality, or the incredibley negative downstream effects for American power in the future are, frankly, secondary. You have completely danced around the issue.
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Prohibition was "morality". Laws prohibiting interracial marriage were "morality". Blue laws are "morality".

Are you going to tell me that everyone here on this board has the same views on these subjects? Or is, like I have stated all along, morality relative.
 
The question is simply this: does the end by definition justify the means? Everything in the Bill of Rights is opposed to this mindset, and if you are opposed to it, then you are simply in intellectual league with every third-world thug strongman.

The whole point of the US Bill of Rights is that certain principles outweigh the expediency of the moment. The greatest threat to the American way of life is NOT terrorism, it is our government doing whatever it wants in the name of self-defense, whether it is to foreigners or US citizens.
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But the Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact to be used to justify losing a war with enemies who want you and all of your relatives dead. The fact of 9/11 shows that this is not a contrived event for a government power grab. The fact that those RELEASED from Gitmo have a large percentage being involved in the terrorist fight again shows we have an evaluation process that is slanted hugely in the terrorists favor. I do not think these detainees deserve Geneva Convention treatment since they are not uniformed and they don't represent the military of any country. I do not think they deserve Bill of Rights protection if they are captured as enemy terrorists on foreign soil. They chose to be involved so I don't have any sympathy for their outcome. There was no government coersion to force them to fight, right or wrong. The thing that will happen if these thug terrorists get BoR protections is that there won't be any more prisoners taken. Why take the risk of a suicide bomber?
 
But the Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact to be used to justify losing a war with enemies who want you and all of your relatives dead.
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You might want to read up on your history. Empires rarely end because of outside enemies - they rot from within. The Islamic terrorists pose could never end the American way of life - we would have to do that ourselves, by giving up our ideals.

To borrow a sig line:
All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures. -J. Caesar
 
All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures. -J. Caesar
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Like the precedent of treating terrorists as american citizens? Or the precedent of not waterboarding. No matter. I agree on both counts.
 
But the Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact to be used to justify losing a war with enemies who want you and all of your relatives dead. The fact of 9/11 shows that this is not a contrived event for a government power grab.
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Which is why dangerous weapons must be removed from the civilian population. At present it is all to easy for the enemies of society to obtain such weapons and use them against the populace. :rolleyes:

See how easy it is to justify anything when you scare people enough.

Drug them but don't use pain and terror to gain information. Establish rules for their treatment but do not throw them into a black hole of non-existence where the gov't can do what it wishes to them indefinitely and with no accountability. If you are intent on treating them as enemy combatants out of uniform, spies and saboteurs, then treat them as such and execute them but do not turn an American military institution into a terror camp designed to abuse prisoners in their care.
 
Drug them but don't use pain and terror to gain information. Establish rules for their treatment but do not throw them into a black hole of non-existence where the gov't can do what it wishes to them indefinitely and with no accountability. If you are intent on treating them as enemy combatants out of uniform, spies and saboteurs, then treat them as such and execute them but do not turn an American military institution into a terror camp designed to abuse prisoners in their care.
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Very well said, Musketeer. Your statement pretty much sums up what I have been unable to articulate.
 
However this issue isn't about morality, its about winning a war. They two share little, if nothing, in common.
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As far as your false positives, there are none according to the interrogators. Each time waterboarding was used it resulted in actionable intelligence.
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Awesome. If you can't even see the problems here, I probably can't do anything.
 
One of the many beauties of these "waterboarding" discussions is that, with enough waterboarding, anyone could force anyone else to change his position.

It's fabulous!
 
Drug them but don't use pain and terror to gain information. Establish rules for their treatment but do not throw them into a black hole of non-existence where the gov't can do what it wishes to them indefinitely and with no accountability. If you are intent on treating them as enemy combatants out of uniform, spies and saboteurs, then treat them as such and execute them but do not turn an American military institution into a terror camp designed to abuse prisoners in their care.
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So let me get this straight. Its perfectly ok to kill them but not waterboard them. Ok lets go with that. Since its ok to kill them, is it ok to ask them questions before we kill them? What about if we offer not to kill them if they tell us what we know?

The same with drugs. Its not ok to waterboard, but its perfectly fine to pump you full of narcotics which are potentially harmfull? You don't think that there is an element of terror when you're sitting in a room with 4 other guys and one walks up with a syringe?

As far as the rest, its the same old story, all excitement and no substance. We DO have established rules for these detainees. They are NOT abused by ANY stretch of the imagination. The ONLY abuse that has been reported on turned out to be patently false.

If you guys are going to make criticisims, then you need to get your facts straight and not fabricate this crap about US run "gulags".
 
Awesome. If you can't even see the problems here, I probably can't do anything.
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You didn't answer my question, and I want a straight answer. I said...

Stage 2 said:
Prohibition was "morality". Laws prohibiting interracial marriage were "morality". Blue laws are "morality".

Are you going to tell me that everyone here on this board has the same views on these subjects? Or is, like I have stated all along, morality relative.
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So which is it. Is morality this fixed concept that everyone is aware of, or is it relative and different for everyone.

As for the rest, are you going to deny that waterboarding didn't work? That we didn't gain vital intelligence after seconds of waterboarding from a suspect that did not break after being subjected to conventional methods?
 
So let me get this straight. Its perfectly ok to kill them but not waterboard them. Ok lets go with that.
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There are established rules for spies and saboteurs. Follow them.

Using terror tactics on defenseless prisoners to get them to say anything possible to end the torture is a practice below the principals of this great nation. Whatever these creatures are they are now helpless and in our care. The world has accepted the manner of dealing with the spy and saboteur so do it and be done with it. The world has not accepted the use of terror and torture to gain information. When the concept of cruel and unusual punishment was incorporated into our COTUS I am certain the idea of torturing those of other nation being legal since they were not US citizens never entered the minds of the Founding Fathers.

That the Legislature has not overwhelmingly acted to end this practice is despicable.
 
Let me spell this out more clearly. Morality is deeply intertwined with the prosecution of war. That is why there are war crimes. That means that there are certain things that we have decided are beneath us, whatever disgusting things were done to us, or our allies. We have imposed limits on our conduct in every war.

That is because of our morality. Yes, as you point out, morality is relative; that is a trivially true statement. You suggest that there might be disagreement about torture, but our society, from its inception, has been morally opposed to torture. It is specifically mentioned in the US Bill of Rights, which is as much an expression of our morals as anything could be. When waterboarding was done to Moros in the Phillipines, there was a public outcry, even if it was ultimately whitewashed. The fact is, such torture violates our morals.

It is not so much important what happens to them, as is the fact that WE are better than that. We hold ourselves to higher standards. You have offered that you would be happy to impose a variety of tortures on our enemies, and to me that is disgusting.

If you sacrifice your morals under difficult times, then it is that much easier to justify bending them under less difficult times, and on down the slippery slope.

I have been very heartened, by the way, so see how many posters have essentially supported this position. It buttresses my faith in the morality of the American people.

We DO have established rules for these detainees. They are NOT abused by ANY stretch of the imagination. The ONLY abuse that has been reported on turned out to be patently false.
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This is also untrue. I will only mention Abed Hamed Mowhoush, Habibullah, and Dilawar, among others.
 
There are established rules for spies and saboteurs. Follow them.
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So then we should be able to take every detainee from gitmo out back and send a round through their brain right? After all, they are by definition saboteurs.
 
That is because of our morality. Yes, as you point out, morality is relative; that is a trivially true statement. You suggest that there might be disagreement about torture, but our society, from its inception, has been morally opposed to torture. It is specifically mentioned in the US Bill of Rights, which is as much an expression of our morals as anything could be.
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I'm sorry, but I must have missed the part where the Bill of rights talks about torture. It does speak about cruel and unusual punishment. Of course, putting people in stocks for days and having prisoners drawn and quartered was the practice of the day back during the time of the framers. They apparently didn't think there was anything 'immoral' about this.

This of course presents several problems. If being drawn and quartered isn't torture, then surely waterboarding isn't. If it is then apparently "torture" doesn't necessarily violate the bill of rights. This means if the bill of rights did apply to terrorists, then waterboarding would still be acceptable. However since it doesn't, then you don't have a legal argument or a moral one either.

This is also untrue. I will only mention Abed Hamed Mowhoush, Habibullah, and Dilawar, among others.
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Abed Hamed Mowhoush was not a detainee. His death was the partial responsibility of iraqi paramilitaries. Those servicemen that were involved were rightfully charged and convicted.

The other two were not gitmo detainees either. While it is clear that their deaths were a result of illegal procedures, this doesn't relate to the conditions of gitmo or the standardized procedures we have for detainees.

If someone acts in violation of the rules that doesn't mean that the system is bad. The very fact that certian acts are prohibited suggests that the system is good. Pointing to illegal abuses that resulted in the deaths of 2 individuals when there have been thousands in custody isn't an indictment of the system.

If anything its something to be proud of.
 
having prisoners drawn and quartered was the practice of the day back during the time of the framers. They apparently didn't think there was anything 'immoral' about this.
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Please, study up on your history. The term 'cruel and unusual punishment' referred specifically to drawing and quartering.

Incidentally, the practice was British, and they often prescribed it for treason. To them, the US revolutionaries wer both traitors and terrorists, so no punishment was too great.
 
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