Is waterboarding torture?

Is water boarding torture and do you condone its use?

  • Yes, water boarding is torture and I condone its use.

    Votes: 36 25.7%

  • No, water boarding isnt torture and I condone its use.

    Votes: 33 23.6%

  • Yes, water boarding is torture and I do not condone its use.

    Votes: 68 48.6%

  • No water boarding isnt torture and I do not condone its use.

    Votes: 3 2.1%
  • Total voters
    140
Because we all know that Republican administrations are patriots, and have nothing but the best intentions, and can therefore be trusted not to violate our rights unless it is for a really good reason, and Democrats are godless heathens who throw babies into bonfires for their amusement and therefore can't be trusted.
 
PBP, if you don't believe capturing these people saved lives and that information came from waterboarding then you're just being naive and don't want to see it. Look, you're not going to make me see it your way and you're not going to see it mine. Let's just agree to disagree and move on.
 
PBP, if you don't believe capturing these people saved lives and that information came from waterboarding then you're just being naive and don't want to see it.
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I dont think PBP ever said that capturing these people didn't save lives. In fact I think capturing them probably did save lives. The question he was asking was what terrorist attack was prevented by waterboarding. Were any attacks prevented by waterboarding? Probably not as far as we can tell. The Bush administration speaks broadly of important information being revealed, but I think they would have probably been more specific if they had gotten any info that lead to the prevention of a terrorist attack.
 
I dont think PBP ever said that capturing these people didn't save lives. In fact I think capturing them probably did save lives. The question he was asking was what terrorist attack was prevented by waterboarding. Were any attacks prevented by waterboarding? Probably not as far as we can tell.
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I don't think you can say a specific attack was thwarted but from the past acts of these people I (IMHO) think you can say that attacks were thwarted. The fact is if not for waterboarding these people may not have been captured at all or at least not as quick as they were. That's my take on it anyway.
 
I don't think you can say a specific attack was thwarted but from the past acts of these people I (IMHO) think you can say that attacks were thwarted. The fact is if not for waterboarding these people may not have been captured at all or at least not as quick as they were. That's my take on it anyway.
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The original three were captured by traditional methods. Then you say waterboarding three people was valuable because it led to one or two captures?

There is no evidence that the information obtained from waterboarding even led to these captures and that they would not have been captured via traditional means just as the three original suspects had been.

Plus, if they used this information to stop an actual attack, where are the prosecutions? Where are the trials?

This is all propaganda and fabricated justification that does not withstand the slightest scrutiny. That is why the administration is continually fighting against even publicly addressing the topic. They played the deny game until it became public, then they tried to make up circumstances to justify their illegal actions. Then they tried to claim it is not illegal. Just like they first said they were not violating the law regarding domestic spying, then when caught they tried to justify their actions, then they tried to say what they did was not illegal. It is a trend.

For decades the intel community has regarded waterboarding as torture and has regarded torture and unjust and unreliable. You have to be pretty weak in the grey matter department to think that one exaggerated, or even fabricated example, to the contrary by a questionable administration would suddenly negate that fact.

You guys are grasping for justification and building your arguments on a foundation of sand and lies. I am not going to invalidate your desire to take a harsher stance with these people but I will point out the weakness in your justification.
 
Whatever.:rolleyes: Like I said we'll just have to agree to disagree. They're enemies and my feelings on it is whatever it takes is justified.
 
ANYTHING that we would condem used on our own soldiers should be verbotten to us as well. When you lower yourself to your enemy's tactics, are you any better than they are?
 
These are the threads I will post when I hear "Obama can't DO that, it isn't FAIR!!!"
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You won't hear me complain about that. I might complain about him but I won't say he can't do something and how it's not fair. I pretty much take it like it comes, the good with the bad.

When you lower yourself to your enemy's tactics, are you any better than they are?
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I don't care about that. I'm not some bleedin heart. Where my enemies are concerned I'll go as low as I have to to get the upper hand. If somebody starts a fight with me there is no "fair" I'll do whatever it takes to beat the ever lovin crap outta him with the least amount of damage to me.
 
ANYTHING that we would condem used on our own soldiers should be verbotten to us as well. When you lower yourself to your enemy's tactics, are you any better than they are?
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Well, I will say that I would be okay with ANY nation drawing and quartering any US citizen that is found guilty (after fair and due process) of a terrorist act that took innocent life.

I would also be okay with us doing it to them...after they are also found guilty after due and fair process.
 
THIS THREAD SICKENS ME. As I sit and read some of the views on waterboarding being portrayed as such cruel torture it doesn`t surprise me that our military feels incredibly handicaped when it comes to interrogating suspected or known terrorist. The words torture, bararic,uncivilized-are some of you for real? I seriously doubt that one prisoner has been waterboarded just for the sake of watching it being done. People here posting that they`re afraid some of our soldiers will be tortured in a inhumane way if captured. Where have you been over the last 40 years? Geneva convention, great thing if everyone would abide by it. We all know that doesn`t happen, especially now. I`m sure the military would welcome some of your thoughts on how to more effectively,less barbaric and more civilized to interrogate prisoners. We don`t throw them out of choppers anymore, electricute them, use bleed out rooms, pull fingers nails etc. Some of which we`ve been guilty of doing in the past to gather info but it was ok then cause we either hired it done(CIA,Air America) or South Vietnamese or Cambodes did it for us. Remember we have to adhere to Geneva Treaty:barf:. That should make some of you feel better. Fact is you have to get inteligence the best way you can. Its easy for us to sit here in front of our computors and cast stones. Ask a few soldiers that are in combat and have seen a few tortured,beheaded,dead comrads what they think of waterboarding.
 
I was in MI for eight years. I did not see that mindset as being prevalent.
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Nothing has changed today. The amount of intel that is gathered from a "tortured" prisoner these days is minuscule at most and hardly actionable at best. Far more intel is gathered from "open sources" and citizens on the streets. This whole notion of beating every last scrap of intel out of a prisoner is just barbaric.
 
Nothing has changed today. The amount of intel that is gathered from a "tortured" prisoner these days is minuscule at most and hardly actionable at best. Far more intel is gathered from "open sources" and citizens on the streets. This whole notion of beating every last scrap of intel out of a prisoner is just barbaric.
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If people who support torture were to deal with the reality of the situation they would realize torture is not effective. If we implemented the most effective interrogation method on terrorists they would be in an uproar.
 
There is no evidence that the information obtained from waterboarding even led to these captures and that they would not have been captured via traditional means just as the three original suspects had been.
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Sure there is. The info that KSM gave up directly led to the capture of Riduan Isamuddin, responsible for the 2002 bombings of night clubs in Bali. Abu Zubaydah was the guy that fingered KSM and gave detailed information about the 9/11 attacks and the organizational structure of al quaeda. Most importantly, some of the information given up by these two guys was responsible for thwarting the al quaeda plot to blow up multple airliners in 2006.

You keep saying that traditional methods would have worked, however the facts are that these guys didn't say anything until they were waterboarded. Once they were, they sang. According to one of the CIA interrogators, after KSM had given some information he started to resist again, and all they had to do was show him the board and he began talking again.

Waterboarding is effective, period. It cracked hardened terrorists where everything else failed. You may not like it for moral/political reasons, however its effectiveness isn't something you can deny.



For decades the intel community has regarded waterboarding as torture and has regarded torture and unjust and unreliable. You have to be pretty weak in the grey matter department to think that one exaggerated, or even fabricated example, to the contrary by a questionable administration would suddenly negate that fact.
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Thats pretty interesting, because as far as the intelligence community goes, I think we will agree that the CIA is the authority. It was the CIA that went to the administration to get approval to waterboard, not the other way around.

If the CIA is the one asking permission to waterboard, that kind of kills your theory that the intel community believes waterboarding is useless.

If you use a wee bit of logic, if waterboarding didn't work, then the CIA would already be aware of this fact. Why then would they go to all this trouble to ask permission and open themselves to public scrutiny to do something that would work. They wouldn't. If they wanted to torture, they would do it, not film it and certianly not ask permission.

Of course, if it did work, then that would explain why they made the effort.
 
Where is the evidence of this?

And if they have direct testimony why has there not been a trial?
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1) the CIA
2) I dont know, but its probably more advantageous to just hold him than prosecute them as well as other political issues that are way over my head.
 
Stage 2 makes me laugh sometimes. If the administration, with its abysmal approval rating, had prevented any viable attacks, they would have broadcast it as loudly as possible.
 
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