Waterboarding

[techres]

I'm with Panama here, Rep'd for being sensible, even with an enemy. Certain situations need to be dealt with in a certain way, it's difficult to say, "yeah, just torture them all!", or "no, never torture them!" Either way has drastic consequences. You don't want fearless POW's and you don't want the enemy to torture you because you did it to them first. Just like my dad always told me, there's a time and a place for everything.

And who makes that choice? A judge? A politician? What protections and process is given to guard against mistakes?

No process, no law, no protections. That is not the American way. And that is not something I would want to answer to my creator for, nor something I would entrust to a government to use as it "needs to".

 

[dburkhead]

Consider the following hypthetical:

Suppose a man walks into a government office and claims to have planted a nuclear weapon in a major metropolitan center. The man provides enough information that you have no question that he could have the bomb and could have done what he claims. A quick follow up checks out elements of his story about how the bomb got into the US and traces it right up until he rented a panel van and deactivated the van's "Onstar."

He tells you that the bomb will go off in six hours unless deactivated. You try asking him politely where the bomb is and how to deactivate it. That doesn't work.

Now what do you do? Is there any level, any at all, where you would stop trying to get the necessary information out of that individual? Could you sanction torture in that situation, or would you be willing to let thousands, possibly millions, of people die rather than take that step?

If, in a situation that extreme, you could justify torture (and, incidentally, I do not consider waterboarding to be torture*, but this hypothetical is a test of the extreme)?

If you can, then all that's really left is "haggling over price."**

* Anything that someone who is not a serious masochist (in the clinical sense) will do more than once to "prove a point" (as at least one journalist has done) does not qualify as torture in my book. Once, you might not know what you were in for. Second time, however....

There's a scene in John Ringo's book "Ghost" that illustrates this (paraphrased rather than look it up):
Hostage girl: "Are you a cop?"
Ghost: "Do the police usually shoot people in the leg to get information from them?"
Hostage girl: "Well, they beat them up."
Ghost: "Did these people beat you up?"
Hostage girl: "Yes."
Ghost: "Should I shoot you in the leg so you'll understand the difference?"
For some reason Hostage Girl didn't go for that idea.

** Old story. A man asks an attractive young woman if she'd sleep with him for some very large sum of money ($1 million is the figure usually bandied about in this story). The woman's answer is an enthusiastic yes. The man then follows up asking if she'd sleep with him for $20 at which the woman is outraged
"What kind of woman do you think I am?"
"We have already established what kind of woman you are, madam. Now we're only haggling over price."

 

[ATF Consumer]

And yet the recent history backs the fact that those powers we used on "enemy combatants" were also used on Americans. One "captured" on the battlefield of the Chicago Airport.

There is no final separation. You have a hammer and a problem, and hitting the nail is taught and used, and that problem sure looks like a nail, and it has been allowed before....

You open that window and you cannot close it. You are writing away your own freedoms in the hopes of increased security.

The very powers we have allowed for the security of a drug free society are now used for no-knock warrants in cities all over and for stuff that was never intended. The very powers we have allowed for detaining foreigners have been used on Americans. The very powers we have allowed will be misused because we know that is what people in power are able to do and get away with it.

Again, you allow our government to waterboard and you lose any right to complain that you mistrust Obama and crew. Why? Because you just handed them the power to use it and that is a statement of trust.

I have that trust for no leader and neither did our founders.

ok, so what is the solution then?

 

[turnandshoot4]

I'll tell you that I started the Chicago Fire if you don't torture me. I'll tell you what ever that you want. The army has even come out to say that torture is not an effective means to get information.

 

[techres]

Consider the following hypthetical...

Hypotheticals are nice, but reality is a hammer. You give over your rights on the hopes of solving a problem that comes out of a TV show layout and I will show you a government that will be happy to take those rights and knock in doors and do at will every day since it is now "ok" to do that.

You cannot control this kind of Genie. It will not give you your wishes. It will only find a way to bind you every bit tighter.

While you wait for that one time that it might solve a mass attack on an atomic level, the government will change hands and then suddenly you will wonder why you ever gave those powers over to **** fill in the blank **** to use.

This question has two levels for me:

1. Is it Constitutional? If not then I cannot allow it as then I would be trading away my right to claim absolute rights under that Constitution.
2. Can I trust the use of these powers? Again, nope, no way, you gotta be kidding me.

Sorry.

 

[ATF Consumer]

I'll tell you that I started the Chicago Fire if you don't torture me. I'll tell you what ever that you want. The army has even come out to say that torture is not an effective means to get information.

There are those in any field that will say things to gain benefit to their own agenda...look at all of the "scientists" that back Al Gore's Global Warming claims.

 

[techres]

ok, so what is the solution then?

The solution to what?

The fact that bad people want to hurt us? That has been going on forever. We do not suddenly have to drop out the Constitution because we found that out. Frankly, that is acting like a chicken.

The fact that bad people may actually hurt us? If we are truly at war (even though that has never been Constitutionally declared), then the reality is that we will take casualties and we will inflict them. There is no "safe" in war.

The fact that someone might walk into a public place and claim to have a bomb? That is what we call a nutjob. Terrorists do not do that. They just blow it up and go with it. Anyone caught before the detonation is a suspect that has to be proven. YOU WILL NEVER SEE THE ABOVE SCENARIO. Instead you will have hundreds of "suspected terrorists" that you will waterboard and get all sorts of data from. But it will not be what you wanted...

The fact that this war is costing us far more in our civil liberties than we will admit? That is my line.

 

[techres]

There are those in any field that will say things to gain benefit to their own agenda...look at all of the "scientists" that back Al Gore's Global Warming claims.

Same could be said of those that say waterboarding works and gets good data. Zero sum gain there.

 

[turnandshoot4]

There are those in any field that will say things to gain benefit to their own agenda...look at all of the "scientists" that back Al Gore's Global Warming claims.

If I was waterboarding you would you tell me where you put the widget? Even if you didn't have a widget? Or put a widget anywhere?

If the case were reverse I would tell you whatever you wanted to hear.

 

[dburkhead]

If I was waterboarding you would you tell me where you put the widget? Even if you didn't have a widget? Or put a widget anywhere?

If the case were reverse I would tell you whatever you wanted to hear.

The usual claim is that someone will say anything to stop the torture.

Yes, they will. Including. The. Truth.

The examples of people "saying anything" are generally from things like the inquisition or "purges" where it was all basically street theater and they really didn't care if the "information" was accurate.

The trick is to "teach" them early on that lying does not stop the torture. Start with questions where you do know the answer, or can find out relatively quickly. Respond to lies by cranking things up. The subject pretty soon learns not to lie.

And again in the hypothetical I gave, the situation is one where you can learn pretty quickly if the person is lying. And. He. Knows. That. Under those circumstances the only thing he can say to stop the torture is the truth--at least so far as the location of the bomb. The only real question, as far as getting the information is whether he lies about how to disarm the bomb, or tells the truth expecting you to think he's lying. But then, stopping a nuke from producing a nuclear explosion--if you can get into it's close vicinity--isn't hard at all. The geometry of the chemical explosions that trigger the nuclear explosion is critical. Disrupt it (by, say, setting up a separate explosion adjacent, as with a shaped charge) and no nuke. Yeah, you've got a cleanup mess, but that's a whole lot better than a nuked city. Really it is.

 

[turnandshoot4]

And doing this to them isn't making yourself one of them? We talk about the civil rights violations of other nations, religons, etc. and we would do this? In the event of a terrorist, they usually die during the act of what they do. So finding the attacker usually isn't an option, they had the nuke on their back.

If you can use the hypotheticals why don't you aknowledge techres'? If we can do this to other humans, why won't they use it on Americans?

 

[schwaky18]

If we are talking about torture and the constitution I think we need to do a Scalia analysis: history and tradition.

I don’t have time to do the research on this, but I personally think that if you look at torture in 1776 it would be a far cry from waterboarding. I think what our forefathers had in mind is cutting off fingers, the stretcher, starvation, castration, ect. It has to have something that will leave a permanent handicap.

Suffering does not equal torture if done in a way that will not permanently harm or physically scar the person IMO.

If we are talking about morality it may go either way. But my opinion is they murdered people that did nothing wrong except being a passenger on an airplane, or going to work, or trying to save these people. So F$%# them they threw out morality on 9/11 if not before that.

Further, they are not even governed by our constitution. What kind of arrogant people are we to say the whole world should fall under our constitution. Yes, the soldiers are governed by the constitution but read it:

nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted

I personal read this as you can't inflict torture on americans, not that no american can torture.

Just my but since I don't see them as even falling under our Con. I for cutting off fingers and what not. This documents only applies to OUR gov and ITS people and people on ITS soil. So anything else is far game.

 

[turnandshoot4]

I would love to go back to those days. They also would have overthrown our government by now for taxing us. Period.

How about the U.S. soldier that pressed the button that hit a school in Iraq? And killed hundreds of children and people going to work? Should they be tortured? That happens in war right? This is their war against us for bombing them for the last 16 years.

 

[NateIU10]

Suffering does not equal torture if done in a way that will not permanently harm or physically scar the person IMO.

And to think that psychological damage cannot be deeper than any physical wound is asinine IMHO

Sorry, I cannot support water-boarding

 

[techres]

If we are talking about torture and the constitution I think we need to do a Scalia analysis: history and tradition.

I don’t have time to do the research on this, but I personally think that if you look at torture in 1776 it would be a far cry from waterboarding. I think what our forefathers had in mind is cutting off fingers, the stretcher, starvation, castration, ect. It has to have something that will leave a permanent handicap.

Suffering does not equal torture if done in a way that will not permanently harm or physically scar the person IMO.

If we are talking about morality it may go either way. But my opinion is they murdered people that did nothing wrong except being a passenger on an airplane, or going to work, or trying to save these people. So F$%# them they threw out morality on 9/11 if not before that.

I am not arguing on morality. I am arguing on unintended consequences. You want to toss out the rules or make new ones and then you will get to live with them when they are used against you.

The problem is:

1. Finding only people with info that you need and doing it on them.
2. FInding people to do it that will do it the "right way" and not some other way.
3. Finding their bosses and being sure that the methods are not being used out of line with #1 and #2.
4. Making sure that the highest bosses do not find a momentary basis for being loose with 1, 2 and 3.

"Cry Havoc! Let loose the dogs of war!"

Those dogs may be used on you.

Again, to put my question most succintly. Do you trust our government more to use waterboarding carefully, judiciously, and with restraint when you cannot trust them to manage a car manufacturing plant?

I cannot trust them for either and am not gonna give them a stick that might some day get shoved up my.....

And as for the Constitution, there is a DUE PROCESS thingy in it. And a thing about not being forced to give info on oneself... And....

 

[right winger]

I say do what ever it takes to break th enemy.

 

[turnandshoot4]

Why?

 

[techres]

How about the U.S. soldier that pressed the button that hit a school in Iraq? And killed hundreds of children and people going to work? Should they be tortured? That happens in war right? This is their war against us for bombing them for the last 16 years.

I am not with you on this one. I actually do think there is a war between the west and the east that will decide between a civilized world based on law, freedom and modernity versus a thug world based on expediency, connections, and backward medieval views of society and religion.

We have to win this war, or at least contain the problem. However, we have to keep our own house stable as we fight it. Most empires crumble from within rather than being defeated from the outside. Some think our crumbling is from weakness, personally I think it is from shortsighted fear coupled with expediency.

 

[schwaky18]

And to think that psychological damage cannot be deeper than any physical wound is asinine IMHO

Sorry, I cannot support water-boarding

Yes but history and tradition shows us that psychological damage would probably not had even been considered in 1776 as relating to torture.

I am not saying its a good thing I am just saying it probably doesn't fall under our Con. unless you want to make this document a "living document" forever changing. Which I don't.

I don't think it is morally right but once again I don't think what they did was morally right either, so I don't have a problem getting info out of them in was they may be suspect if it works.

 

[schwaky18]

I am not arguing on morality. I am arguing on unintended consequences. You want to toss out the rules or make new ones and then you will get to live with them when they are used against you.

The problem is:

1. Finding only people with info that you need and doing it on them.
2. FInding people to do it that will do it the "right way" and not some other way.
3. Finding their bosses and being sure that the methods are not being used out of line with #1 and #2.
4. Making sure that the highest bosses do not find a momentary basis for being loose with 1, 2 and 3.

"Cry Havoc! Let loose the dogs of war!"

Those dogs may be used on you.

Again, to put my question most succintly. Do you trust our government more to use waterboarding carefully, judiciously, and with restraint when you cannot trust them to manage a car manufacturing plant?

I cannot trust them for either and am not gonna give them a stick that might some day get shoved up my.....

And as for the Constitution, there is a DUE PROCESS thingy in it. And a thing about not being forced to give info on oneself... And....

Yes but the world is not governed by OUR Constitution. I as an american am governed by the Constitution. You can't force our rights onto other people. My gov. can't do it to me because that would violate Due process and the 8A. But the our gov. can do it to others because they do not have the rights we have.

Our Constitution does not apply to the rest of the world. Is our country that egocentric to think everyone is governed by OUR rule of law? This is not done on American soil and is not done to Americans.