Thread: Bush vetoes waterboard torture ban

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

From another thread: (the subject was more about U.S. foreign policy, but I feel the same about torture.)



As far as "not coming up with another suggestion," how would somebody be expected to do that without knowing all of the tools, tactics and or past-techniques available in the field?

That's like 10 ten year old's having a conversation about how to fix a hole in a soap-box racer and one of them saying "You know, there's gotta be some other way to fix that hole. I don't think that tape you're using is going to hold" and the other saying "Oh yeah? Well, if you're so smart, what do YOU think? Got nothing eh? That's what I thought. I'm using this tape and that's that."

Just because someone senses a problem with something but doesn't readily have a remedy does not mean that there is anything wrong with their argument.

Besides, when it all comes down to it; this is more about the hypocrisy of the government than it is anything else. People like to twist and distort the meaning of words like "torture," when applicable, to make it adhere to their own biases.

Would a S.W.A.T. team member say that getting locked in a room full of gas as a training method is torture? Maybe, maybe not. The fact is they signed on and agreed to have that happen to them, as part of their training.

Would an unwilling person that gets thrown in a room full of tear gas, until they give up information that that might not even have, call it torture. Yes. And they would be right.

Would a self-destructive gothic kid with mental instability call dragging knives across different parts of his body torture? No. It would be a form of pleasure.

Would strapping an unwilling participant down to a gurney and cutting them, until they give up information that they may or may not even have, be torture? Yes.

Turning a soldier in training upside down and forcing water over his mouth and nose; torture? Depends on the soldier's perspective.

An unwilling person? Yes.

See a pattern here?

Maybe (for the sake of argument) it is crucial in this fight, but if the American government feels that they have to resort to such actions, they need to just quit trying to smooth us all over by bending the truth and just admit that they use torture as a form of interrogation.

Great post, but hey now, I never said it was right, or that I support it, or anything.

I was just asking a question.

But your first analogy doesn't really work because I am going to assume that everyone here has been reading this thread for at least a day, and knows quite a bit about the situation.

I was just wondering what solutions they could come up with.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

Great post, but hey now, I never said it was right, or that I support it, or anything.

I was just asking a question.

Fair enough.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

But your first analogy doesn't really work because I am going to assume that everyone here has been reading this thread for at least a day, and knows quite a bit about the situation.

I'm not quite sure of what you mean by this (The connection between the two, I mean).

Well I would assume that a bunch of ten year olds wouldn't have much forsieght anyhow, not to mention one would obviously see a problem with the method being used to fix it, but doesn't know how to fix it because he's... 10. And most likely hasn't developed those kinds of skills.

I see your point, but still...

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

Well I would assume that a bunch of ten year olds wouldn't have much forsieght anyhow, not to mention one would obviously see a problem with the method being used to fix it, but doesn't know how to fix it because he's... 10. And most likely hasn't developed those kinds of skills.

I see your point, but still...

Well, I was only using 10 year olds because - just like how they likely wouldn't know what other options were available to them, within the context of repair tools and resources, patchwork etc. - not all of us who get into conversations about how we believe alternative methods to torture should be found know the extent of the resources the American government has to find those methods. Maybe they have used every tactic possible, but, because this being the War on terror, I doubt it. There more-than-implied objective is to get as much information in as little time possible.

But the analogy was less about the brain capacity of a ten year old and more about just relating the levels of experience on the subject.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

No.

The civil war caused the South's economy to collapse due to inflation.

What? Are you honestly saying that the collapse of slavery really didn't caues the south's economy to collapse? Besides the fact that the collapse of slavery was the main cause of INFLATION (the government needed to finance the war, and couldn't because of the loss of revenue from slavery (such as exports and taxes and trade, etc.), and issued tons of trivial paper notes to act as currency. Also, the instability caused by the collapse of slavery in itself helped cause inflation), but the collapse of slavery was undoubtedly a cause of the south's economic collapse.

One of my major points here is that an "alternative" is completely irrelevant. It is nice, but actually not even necessary, let alone pertinent. If it is in fact TRUE that we have used waterboarding on only three people, and not used it for 5 years, do we really need an alternative to waterboarding? It seems that our national security measures and other things we do are fine substitutes of waterboarding if nothing has happened in the past 5 years even without waterboarding. Furthermore, as Oneironaut said and I mentioned earlier, just because an average joe like one of us has no idea to an alternative doesn't mean there isn't one. That is a ridiculous attempt to support your argument... that is, trying to suggest that waterboarding is the only viable option because some provincial little kid like myself who knows nothing of interrogation, government affairs, physiological reactions or any bit of psychology cannot come up with a way to interrogate these people. It really is a ridiculous sentiment. I do not mean to offend you at all, but please see that our ignorance of the matter is not some sort of absolute proclamation of the lack of alternatives.

Originally Posted by Traveling_Troubador

It's the golden rule buddy. Don't bitch when they're torturing you.

Are you half-baked? They dont just come to you house, take you away, and start interrogating you. You have to do something that involves terrorism to
be interrogated like that.

*everyone goes "oooooOoooO000oOo!!!!"
-lol

Originally Posted by wasup

What? Are you honestly saying that the collapse of slavery really didn't caues the south's economy to collapse? Besides the fact that the collapse of slavery was the main cause of INFLATION (the government needed to finance the war, and couldn't because of the loss of revenue from slavery (such as exports and taxes and trade, etc.), and issued tons of trivial paper notes to act as currency. Also, the instability caused by the collapse of slavery in itself helped cause inflation), but the collapse of slavery was undoubtedly a cause of the south's economic collapse.

While true, the root cause of this was the war-- The confederacy printed huge amounts of paper money to fund the war, which caused their dollar to inflate so ridiculously it was impossible to buy even basic groceries.

Originally Posted by Elwood

Are you half-baked? They dont just come to you house, take you away, and start interrogating you. You have to do something that involves terrorism to be interrogated like that.

The problem is that "you have to do something that involves terrorism" is decided upon by the same people who have the right to torture. If they decide they want to torture you, there is nothing standing in their way after they simply claim you are suspicious.

The problems only begin at "torture is wrong." Giving someone a clear and effortless means of assuming horrible abuse will generally lead to actual horrible abuse. The laws are being manipulated in a way that will lead to the government being able to arrest anyone, US citizen or not, for any reason, hold them indefinitely without trial, and subject them to whatever they want. All of this without warrant, without reading you your rights, without allowing you a lawyer, and in no way encumbered by the Geneva convention. All they will have to do is claim you are a terror suspect. They won't even have to give supporting evidence... only claim that such evidence is classified secret, and cannot be disclosed without compromising national security.

If you can't see all the evidence that suggests powers are moving in this direction with every new bit of legislature, you could be in for a very rude awakening after it is much too late... when they are knocking on your door.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Agreed, after all the slaves were set free the southern economy collapsed and it still hasn't quite caught up. Slaves made the USA the leading exporter of cotton and tobacco (corn too if I'm not mistaken,) and put our dollar up there with the rest of the world's. Didn't make it right.

A much better economic force is payment for work. Then the workers have money to spend, and that stimulates the economy. Economies are fueled by the buying of things.

I said earlier that even if slavery had no viable substitute, it still was not an option. It is worth setting back the economy to free slaves. Involuntary servitude of the innocent is out of the question, even if that means the economy takes a hit, which I don't think it means. Do you think it is worth letting innocents, even thousands at a time, die in order to reduce the amount of suffering of a terrorist? I don't. Remember that the suffering we are talking about results from their refusal to give up information they should be giving up. It is their refusal to reveal plans and planners involved in terrorist plots against the innocent that has the terrorists getting waterboarded. I want to point out again that we have only used it three times in the war on terror, and all three of the pieces of shit we used it on were known high ranking Al Qaeda leaders. Those sons of bitches do not have my sympathy. My sympathy goes to the innocents they were plotting to kill.

So tell me this. Let's say there is, hypothetically, a situation where we can waterboard a known terrorist leader with the aim of getting information out of him about a terrorist attack plot our intelligence has clearly picked up on, though we do not know where or when it is going to happen, except we know the city. We know that thousands of innocents are going to die if we don't stop it. What should we do? Talk to me. Should we waterboard the terrorist leader who can tell us all about it, or do we refrain from that and use "conventional" interroration techniques like telling him how his prison sentence will be reduced if he talks or tell him over and over that he needs to vent out his guilt and lie to him about how others have squealed on him so he will supposedly be even more scared of a long prison sentence? Don't forget that he wants to die for his insane cause. I want to know what you think we should do in that situation. Suppose your parents and your children are in the city where the attack is set to happen. What should be done? I want to know specifically what it is you think we are supposed to do.

Originally Posted by skysaw

The problems only begin at "torture is wrong." Giving someone a clear and effortless means of assuming horrible abuse will generally lead to actual horrible abuse. The laws are being manipulated in a way that will lead to the government being able to arrest anyone, US citizen or not, for any reason, hold them indefinitely without trial, and subject them to whatever they want. All of this without warrant, without reading you your rights, without allowing you a lawyer, and in no way encumbered by the Geneva convention. All they will have to do is claim you are a terror suspect. They won't even have to give supporting evidence... only claim that such evidence is classified secret, and cannot be disclosed without compromising national security.

That is the best argument on your side I have seen so far. You do have a point. The slippery slope could get really messed up, and that is something the public has to be very careful about. So far, waterboarding has been used on people who amount to non-citizen prisoners of war that were known to be top Al Qaeda leaders. As long as waterboarding stays there, it is a great method. However, it is a terrible system once it is used on somebody who is merely suspected of possibly knowing something.

In Pulp Fiction, Bruce Willis's character screwed Marseilles over and got away. Marseilles's worker said he talked to Bruce Willis's boxing trainer and believed he didn't know anything. To that, Marseilles responded, "We don't want to think. We want to know. Get the dogs on his ass and find out exactly what he knows." I am very much against using waterboarding for that. It does qualify as torture when the detainee really doesn't know anything, and true torture would have very serious slippery slope problems.