Waterboarding

[schwaky18]

And yet for some reason we seem to think our times are so hard in comparason. I mean, really, we do. We are in a long term struggle, but not a fight that could have us each hanging from a tree next to the street tomorrow morning. We act as if we are with our fear jacked up so high that we think the founding principles of this country are quaint and irrelevant due to the "dangers we face".

We sit in our comfortable homes, warm in front of a screen, typing away at the horrors and dangers we face at the hands of people so vile and crafty that our only solution is to take them apart piece by piece, etc.

People, we are not there yet. REALLY.

But we in our self generated fears, conveniently fueled by the very hollywood we despise (yet use as viceral proof that Jack Bauer could make waterboarding give up the location of the bomb), and we are ready to give away our own freedoms and self respect.

Back down to earth.

Here's another question:

Which do you really find more likely -
1. That we will have a situation where a nuclear bomb will be in a city and we will have the mastermind in our hands, and waterboarding will save us all.

or

2. That our government will find a way to backfire yet another poorly thought out, feel good, piece of legislation and in the end we will all get bitten by yet again trusting a bumbling government bureaucracy led by an person bent on making his vision of the future come to pass.

I am more inclined to expect #2 over #1 personally!

I'll go with #2 too.

It sounds to me that you are not per se against waterboarding but are against it because of the effect it will have here at home. If that's the case, I don't see how anyone can disagree with you.

 

[Blue Tile Spook]

Think back to the Persian Gulf War I - MY war.

Iraqi troops, not in uniform, surrendering to Apache and Cobra helicopters. Did they blast them to hell just for being an enemy? NO. They called for ground reinforcements to come collect them, search them for intel and start a debriefing process.

Were we legally bound to do that? Not to kill them? No, we could have done it and gotten away with it unless our government or the Iraqi government found out about it and pressed for charges of murder. That, to me, is honor in a war zone. Doing what is right, not what we are legally bound to do.

Rules in war exist to keep us from becoming murderers and pillagers. They exist to provide boundaries to our troops for what they are allowed or not allowed to do. And no, Bloodeclipse, the Taliban have not signed the Geneva convention to fight the way that we have said that we are going to fight. So what? If we choose to limit what activities we allow in war, that, in my mind, makes us the more honorable of the two, and especially so when we kick their collective asses while fighting honorably.

 

[schwaky18]

Think back to the Persian Gulf War I - MY war.

Iraqi troops, not in uniform, surrendering to Apache and Cobra helicopters. Did they blast them to hell just for being an enemy? NO. They called for ground reinforcements to come collect them, search them for intel and start a debriefing process.

Were we legally bound to do that? Not to kill them? No, we could have done it and gotten away with it unless our government or the Iraqi government found out about it and pressed for charges of murder. That, to me, is honor in a war zone. Doing what is right, not what we are legally bound to do.

Rules in war exist to keep us from becoming murderers and pillagers. They exist to provide boundaries to our troops for what they are allowed or not allowed to do. And no, Bloodeclipse, the Taliban have not signed the Geneva convention to fight the way that we have said that we are going to fight. So what? If we choose to limit what activities we allow in war, that, in my mind, makes us the more honorable of the two, and especially so when we kick their collective asses while fighting honorably.

Is that honor or just being smart. You got intel out of them. To me this isn't honor this is just being war smart and doing everything you can to stop the enemy. It would be dumb to kill them for no reason when you can get intel out of them. I still don't believe in rules for war, but I do believe in out smarting our enemy

 

[BloodEclipse]

What means of intelligence gathering is acceptable against an enemy?
Using your line of thought we shouldn't wiretap, torture (Again your def and mine, most likely are not the same) or anything that may be used against the American people themselves?
Why even have a military or a CIA?

 

[techres]

I'll go with #2 too.

It sounds to me that you are not per se against waterboarding but are against it because of the effect it will have here at home. If that's the case, I don't see how anyone can disagree with you.

I actually am against what waterboarding will do to us as a nation on every level, but for those who need a very practical reason I am focussing on the practical failures.

And, call me selfish, but my job entails thinking always of the question, "How will this go terribly wrong?" And often I am completely right.

I think if we go down the road of seeing the world in two categories: Romans and Barbarians - we will set ourselves up for the same fall as the Romans had. Basically they were unable to make others like them by force of arms. And once they took on the world as being all Barbarians, they lost there chance to be any beacon of liberty and civilization. Their days were marked.

However, for those who are not going to give up the model of Romans and Barbarians, I ask the question - did not every Roman have the right of Roman law? And when that was breached, was the time of the tyrrany of emperors not long after? Yep!

That is the precipice we stand on: Deciding wether to be a Repubic or something far darker where the new leader gets to change all the rules and use increased powers to remove more vesitges of the increasingly dead Republic. Waterboarding is one of those powers and will be given to the president in effect. Hope he likes you and your group, because being a Roman under the "protection" of Roman law ain't what it used to be.

 

[Turtle]

I honestly think we need to bring back public execution and speed up that process to under 10 years atleast...lol

No one takes thing seriously any more why we hide all warm and assume we are safe. Maybe I people saw some one get hung or injected it would make them think diffrent about commiting crimes.

I think we are too spoiled. And to survive we have to remember where we came from. And what it took to get where we are.

 

[Blue Tile Spook]

It is both - honorable AND smart.

Honorable because we IMO aren't there to slaughter a civilization. We are there to obtain political and military objectives. By avoiding needless killing or destruction, then we are being honorable.

It is smart because then we can reap the benefits (intel, removing weapons from the battlefield, removing soldiers from the battlefield, etc.) and use that to continue to push hardship on our enemy (financial, manpower) as well as the psychological aspect of the enemy knowing that their fellow soldiers are being rounded up and secured. For the suicidal people in their midst, if we don't kill them then they can't get to paradise and those mythical 72 virgins, right?

 

[BloodEclipse]

I actually am against what waterboarding will do to us as a nation on every level, but for those who need a very practical reason I am focussing on the practical failures.

And, call me selfish, but my job entails thinking always of the question, "How will this go terribly wrong?" And often I am completely right.

I think if we go down the road of seeing the world in two categories: Romans and Barbarians - we will set ourselves up for the same fall as the Romans had. Basically they were unable to make others like them by force of arms. And once they took on the world as being all Barbarians, they lost there chance to be any beacon of liberty and civilization. Their days were marked.

However, for those who are not going to give up the model of Romans and Barbarians, I ask the question - did not every Roman have the right of Roman law? And when that was breached, was the time of the tyrrany of emperors not long after? Yep!

That is the precipice we stand on: Deciding wether to be a Repubic or something far darker where the new leader gets to change all the rules and use increased powers to remove more vesitges of the increasingly dead Republic. Waterboarding is one of those powers and will be given to the president in effect. Hope he likes you and your group, because being a Roman under the "protection" of Roman law ain't what it used to be.

One little difference in your analogy and reality is, the Romans colonized the territories they conquered. We rebuild them and give them back to the people after we have disposed their tyrants.

 

[techres]

One little difference in your analogy and reality is, the Romans colonized the territories they conquered. We rebuild them and give them back to the people after we have disposed their tyrants.

That is plan A, but we have a habit of staying for a bit (we still have bases in Okinawa, Korea, etc?).

IN any event the colonization is still not a bad analogy as the effort is not just physical. We ARE colonizing the world with TV, McDonalds, and so forth. And much of it is for the great good. However, there is an effect to it.

We are FAR from an isolationist USA that could easily say - "Do what you want, just don't F*&^ with us!" We are everywhere and involved in just about everything. And that is good, again, for the most part. Just don't try to sell the beacon of light, and hope for the world image if we are also the country that takes people apart for potentially useful information.

You cannot force people to like you by force of arms. You can make them fear & respect you, but not like you.

 

[BloodEclipse]

Try as we might, we must also be wise enough to know that, short of slitting our own throats, we cannot appease, convince, or make people like us.
We are who we are, and that "don't offend the world stuff" is what I think is our weakness.
When you change who you are, to appease others, you have lost your identity.

 

[Blue Tile Spook]

When you change who you are, to appease others, you have lost your identity.

That I can agree with!

Have a wonderful day, BE!

 

[techres]

When you change who you are, to appease others, you have lost your identity.

And when you change who you are, out of fear of others, you have lost your identity.

And there is a far way to go between what I said and appeasement. We have always stood for law, freedom, and democracy. If we want to spread those in the world we have to live by them. If we do not live those, then all the money we spend on PR is a wasteful exercise in hypocrisy.

Of course we should not seek to be like others in order to win them over. We should be like us. And that is what I am arguing for. What we have is what the world needs and is what we should export. There should be no difference in the two.

 

[BloodEclipse]

And when you change who you are, out of fear of others, you have lost your identity.

And there is a far way to go between what I said and appeasement. We have always stood for law, freedom, and democracy. If we want to spread those in the world we have to live by them. If we do not live those, then all the money we spend on PR is a wasteful exercise in hypocrisy.

Of course we should not seek to be like others in order to win them over. We should be like us. And that is what I am arguing for. What we have is what the world needs and is what we should export. There should be no difference in the two.

I'm not sure we have changed. We are now just more aware as a public.

Iraq Tactics Have Long History With U.S. Interrogators


By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 13, 2004; Page A08
A CIA handbook on coercive interrogation methods, produced 40 years ago during the Vietnam War, shows that techniques such as those used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a long history with U.S. intelligence and were based on research and field experience.
Declassified 10 years ago, the training manual carries in its title the code word used for the CIA in Vietnam, "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation -- July 1963." Used to train new interrogators, the handbook presents "basic information about coercive techniques available for use in the interrogation situation."
The specific coercive methods it describes echo today's news stories about Guantanamo and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. At Abu Ghraib, for example, photographs and documents have shown that detainees were hooded, blindfolded, dressed in sloppy garb and forced to go naked.
The KUBARK manual suggests that, for "resistant" prisoners, the "circumstances of detention are arranged to enhance within the subject his feelings of being cut off from the known and the reassuring and of being plunged into the strange."
The 1963 handbook describes the benefits and disadvantages of techniques similar to those authorized for use at Abu Ghraib, such as forcing detainees to stand or sit in "stress positions," cutting off sources of light, disrupting their sleep and manipulating their diet.
And among the manual's conclusions: The threat of pain is a far more effective interrogation tool than actually inflicting pain, but threats of death do not help.
Like the lists of interrogation methods approved for Iraq and Guantanamo, the KUBARK manual offers a menu of options for confusing and weakening detainees. A neat or proud individual was to be given an outfit one or two sizes too large without a belt "so that he must hold his pants up," the manual said. Forced changes in diet and sleep patterns should be done "so that the subject becomes disorientated [and] is very likely to create feelings of fear and helplessness."
Tactics involving deprivation of accustomed sights, sounds, taste, smells and tactile sensations were presented as primary methods for producing stress, and mirror the techniques seen at Abu Ghraib. Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top U.S. military officer in Iraq, approved in September a list of methods that included "sensory deprivation," "minimum bread and water," "light control," enforced silence and yelling at prisoners. Those methods have since been barred in Iraq.
The KUBARK manual cited research supporting the effectiveness of the deprivations. "Results produced only after weeks or months of imprisonment in an ordinary cell can be duplicated in hours or days in a cell which has no light or weak artificial light which never varies, which is sound-proofed, and in which odors are eliminated," the manual said.
An experiment referred to in the handbook was done in the 1950s and involved conditions designed to produce stress before an interrogation -- similar to those applied to John Walker Lindh after his capture in Afghanistan. Lindh was tied to a stretcher naked and later held for long periods in a large metal container.
In the experiment done about 50 years earlier, volunteers were "placed in a tank-type respirator" with vents open so that the subjects could breathe but their arms and legs were enclosed in "rigid cylinders to inhibit movement and tactile contact." Lying on their backs in minimal artificial light, the subjects could not see their own bodies, and the respirator motor was the only sound.
Only six of the 17 volunteers completed the 36 hours of the experiment; the other 11 asked for early release -- four because of anxiety and panic, and the others because of physical discomfort.
The conclusion reached, the handbook said, was that "the early effect of such an environment is anxiety" and that "the stress becomes unbearable for most subjects," some of whom "lose touch with reality [and] focus inwardly."
The payoff of such techniques, the manual said, is that when the interrogator appears, he or she appears as a "reward of lessened anxiety . . . providing relief for growing discomfort," and that sometimes, as a result, "the questioner assumes a benevolent role."
When it comes to torture, however, the handbook advised that "the threat to inflict pain . . . can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain."
"In general, direct physical brutality creates only resentment, hostility and further defiance," the manual said.
Intense pain, interrogators were taught, "is quite likely to produce false confessions concocted as a means of escaping from distress."
While pain inflicted by others tends to create resistance in a subject, the manual said, "his resistance is likelier to be sapped by pain which he seems to inflict upon himself."
Reports from Iraq and Afghanistan indicate that detainees have been told to stand at attention for long periods or sit in "stress positions." In one of the photographs from Abu Ghraib, a hooded detainee is shown being forced to stand on a box with wires attached to his body. He was told he would get an electric shock if he moved. Seven military police soldiers have been charged in connection with the abuse shown in that and other photographs. Investigations continue into the role military interrogators played in those incidents.
In such situations, the manual said, the source of pain "is not the interrogator but the victim himself." And while the subject remains in that uncomfortable or painful position, he must be made to think that his captor could do something worse to him, creating in him the stress and anxiety the interrogator seeks.
Threats of death, however, were described as "worse than useless" because they can leave the prisoner thinking "that he is as likely to be condemned after compliance as before."
Experiments at that time also showed that creating physical weakness through prolonged exertion, extremes of heat, cold or moisture, or through drastic reduction of food or sleep do not work.
"The available evidence suggests that resistance is sapped principally by psychological rather than physical pressures," the handbook advised.

An extensive record of its use by the United States land forces exists in the records of the invasion and occupation of the Philippines that began in 1898. As the U.S. encountered armed resistance by the liberation army of Filipino General Emilio Aguinaldo, and sank into a 12-year quagmire on the archipelago, U.S. officers routinely resorted to what they called “the water cure.” Professor Miller's study of the Philippine war reveals this sordid story through Congressional testimony, letters from soldiers, court martial hearings, words of critics and defenders, and newspaper accounts. The pro-imperialist media of the day justified the “water cure” as necessary to gain information; the anti-imperialist media denounced its use by the U.S or any other civilized nation.

Much like today huh only 110 years later. So I don't feel we are changing out of fear.

 

[Panama]

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".

We certainly agree on much more than we disagree on!

I just can not make myself use the "N" word.....................NEVER.

 

[dburkhead]

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?

By that logic shooting in self defense makes yourself one of that "them" (in this case, murderers).

Even the Geneva Conventions are explicit that one is only obligated to follow them when in conflict with an opponent who also follows them.

As for why can't they? They already do.

 

[dburkhead]

And yet for some reason we seem to think our times are so hard in comparason. I mean, really, we do. We are in a long term struggle, but not a fight that could have us each hanging from a tree next to the street tomorrow morning. We act as if we are with our fear jacked up so high that we think the founding principles of this country are quaint and irrelevant due to the "dangers we face".

We sit in our comfortable homes, warm in front of a screen, typing away at the horrors and dangers we face at the hands of people so vile and crafty that our only solution is to take them apart piece by piece, etc.

People, we are not there yet. REALLY.

But we in our self generated fears, conveniently fueled by the very hollywood we despise (yet use as viceral proof that Jack Bauer could make waterboarding give up the location of the bomb), and we are ready to give away our own freedoms and self respect.

Back down to earth.

Here's another question:

Which do you really find more likely -
1. That we will have a situation where a nuclear bomb will be in a city and we will have the mastermind in our hands, and waterboarding will save us all.

or

2. That our government will find a way to backfire yet another poorly thought out, feel good, piece of legislation and in the end we will all get bitten by yet again trusting a bumbling government bureaucracy led by an person bent on making his vision of the future come to pass.

I am more inclined to expect #2 over #1 personally!

The likelihood, wasn't the issue of the hypothetical. It was to show that there are potential situations where most would say "yes, torture is justified." This defines a region between a point A (like, say, you suspect a person has committed a traffic violation) where torture is utterly inexcuseabel and B where the use of torture is justifiable. The "line" being somewhere between those two points

As for all the "what if's" you can apply that kind of reasoning to anything. "What if the government is allowed to lock people up? They can then lock people up for years over traffic violations." "What if the government is allowed to execute people. They can then kill people for criticizing the President."

And while "1" is not likely (but not impossible either), similar but lesser situations happen all the time--this guy knows something, or is considered likely to know something, that can save lives if revealed. Do you get the information any way you can or do you let those people die? And if it turns out he didn't know the information? Well, I'd be as sorry about that as I would be about the innocent French killed as a result of the Normandy invasion. (No French joke here.) As the saying goes, War is Hell.

 

[dburkhead]

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".

Missed this earlier.

"No process, no law, no protections"? That turns out not to be the case. Prisoners status is reviewed annually by a military tribunal. Note that by law military courts are courts every bit as much as civilian courts are. And this includes appeals courts.

 

[SavageEagle]

Ok, at the risk of sounding like an echo in case someone has already made this point, I don't really care. I'm saying it.

This is a subject that I am internally torn and which presents many problems. I did vote yes.

Is being a POW not torture? Will that alone not scar you forever? Obviously these terrorist are not US citizens so they are not granted the rights of our Constitution and should not be given those rights as they are out to destory that and everything which makes us free. Those terrorists wish us to live in fear and under their rule by their anti-freedom rules. Men must give their life for unjust causes and in the name of Allah or whatever cleric claims it is allahs will. Women must not go in public with any skin showing or be put to death and heaven forbid they own a job. Therefore, cut their fingers off one by one until they tell us where and when the next strike will happen. Cut their ballsack with a dull razor until they talk. Use Chinese Water Torture tecniques until the scream uncle!

On the other hand, the Bill of Rights recognize God Given Human Rights, not just rights thought up by man. These rights should be afforded to all men women and children without bias. On that note, there is no room for torture and those who do so are inhuman and immoral and go against the teachings of modern Churches of God. Even if you don't believe in a God, you still must feel that the rights afforded us in the BoR are uninalienable human rights granted to all people. Therefore on those grounds, no, don't torture. But then the problem is posed of how do we identify other terrorists and their targets before they can implement their devious plans? What other way do you make one talk without SOME form of torture?

There aren't many choices that will make someone talk that don't involve some form of Psychological, Emotional, or Physical torture.

So then what do we do? If we can't make them talk do we just sit back and wait for their friends to attack and kill hundreds, thousands, MILLIONS of Americans?

We're not talking about torturing Americans who have done nothing wrong or committed a crime. We are talking about TERRORISTS who are TRYING to cause widespread death on large scales. These are murderers and bringers of Geneocide(Geneocidists?). There are lines here, and while they may be thin lines, there are lines.

So I would like an answer to my question. If we cannot torture a terrorist for info, do we just wait for them to attack us with their newly acquired nuclear warhead or poision our water supply with chemicals, toxins, and other nastys?

 

[schwaky18]

On the other hand, the Bill of Rights recognize God Given Human Rights, not just rights thought up by man.

Thats the only argument against waterboarding that I would agree with. If this falls under an inaliable then I say no to waterboarding. But in times of war to protect your people is this an inaliable right? If so, then is bombing someone that is not immediately threaten your life, murder? This would also fall under an inaliable right. Seems to me in times of war some inaliable rights have to be set aside for a greater good.

 

[SavageEagle]

Thats the only argument against waterboarding that I would agree with. If this falls under an inaliable then I say no to waterboarding. But in times of war to protect your people is this an inaliable right? If so, then is bombing someone that is not immediately threaten your life, murder? This would also fall under an inaliable right. Seems to me in times of war some inaliable rights have to be set aside for a greater good.

Exactly my point.