Thread: "Absolutely torture."

Don't be such an idiot SomeGuy. You just had someone explains how it works and you said its not true. Water boarding isn't painful because you get water up your nose. Its painful because the water goes into your lungs.

Have you ever eaten or drink something and it goes down the wrong tube towards your lung instead of your stomach? That would be more like it. If you have you know you start coughing right away and its not at all pleasant. And that is only one thing. Not prolonged exposes for minutes.

What happens if you either actually sucks water into your lungs, which causes extreme pain and cuts off oxygen to your body, even after it is stopped(The waters still in there). Or your air way spasms shuts and cuts off your breathing all together. In this case, you can die or suffer brain damage even after they stop as you can no longer breath.

The lungs can filter smoke to a point, it can not filter water. Your not a fish, people don't have gills. Water is not suppose to go into the lungs. If it does, it cause SERIOUS problems.

As you said, how hard would a person have to struggle to cause broken bones? Very very hard. Which means they must have been in extreme pain to have had struggled that hard. Yet you discount the pain as if it was nothing.

Physical effects can happen much later. Especially if the lungs were damaged during it, it may not be clear right away. And yes it is just like rape. Some people may act just like that, especially after prolonged and constant torture. Some of them never go near water again.

Originally Posted by Alric

What happens if you either actually sucks water into your lungs, which causes extreme pain and cuts off oxygen to your body, even after it is stopped(The waters still in there). Or your air way spasms shuts and cuts off your breathing all together. In this case, you can die or suffer brain damage even after they stop as you can no longer breath.

1. Is that what is happening to our special forces when they get waterboarded?

2. If so, what percentage of them are permanently harmed by it?

3. Did that happen to the three terrorist leaders the U.S. has waterboarded?

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

1. Is that what is happening to our special forces when they get waterboarded?

2. If so, what percentage of them are permanently harmed by it?

3. Did that happen to the three terrorist leaders the U.S. has waterboarded?

.

Originally Posted by [SomeGuy]

It doesn't matter if they are using it or not. The point of the debate is: Is waterboading torture or not?

And why not pour water on my face? Why not put my head, face up in the sink and turn the faucet on? That's what they are doing pretty much. I don't feel like I'm going to die, I don't feel disturbed or crazed, I'm not getting brain damage. I'm getting water on my face.

Originally Posted by [SomeGuy]

It is not torture. You know they aren't drowning you. You know they would never let you die.

I don't see how slight physical discomfort and a little bit of water up the nose qualifies as "severe pain and suffering", as the official description of torture says it should be.

Originally Posted by [SomeGuy]

In contrast to submerging the head face-forward in water, waterboarding precipitates an almost immediate gag reflex.

Because of water up the nose? I don't gag when that happens.

The technique does not inevitably cause lasting physical damage. It can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, if uninterrupted, death.

Extreme pain...water up the nose BURNS. That's all. Damage to lungs...breathing cigarette smoke causes that, much worse than Waterboarding. Is being around a smoker considered torture? I'm sure they don't do it long enough to cause brain damage. And broken bones against restraints? That's the prisoner's fault. And besides, do you realize how hard you would have to fight the restraints to break bones? Psychological damage? How does that disturb your mind enough to cause psychological damage? They must have really weak mids if it does cause that. And by the way, it is interrupted. So, they are careful with it. If uninterrupted, eating can cause death, swimming can cause death, running, cooking, typing, showering, walking, breathing into a bag, breathing helium, etc.

Adverse physical consequences can start manifesting months after the event; psychological effects can last for years.

How do they manifest after months? That makes no sense. It doesn't take months for a bone to break or for brain damage to occur.

As for the psychological effects, it's not like they got raped. They don't sit in corners staring straight ahead with no words because they got water in the face.

Originally Posted by [SomeGuy]

Or we can start over here.

Waterboarding is not torture. Three reasons why it's not:
- Everybody gets water up their nose in the pool. It's the same.
- One guy got waterboarded for three months. If it really was torture, wouldn't he have said something to make it stop earlier?
- Torture includes stuff like stretching people until they rip, shooting their limbs, ripping open their jaw, isolation chambers, stoning to death, beatings, getting set on fire, starving, cutting a person whilst he/she is awake, and so on. All of those include physical harm, besides an isolation chamber. However, an isolation chamber can cause permanent mental damage. Does waterboarding cause any physical harm or permanent mental damage? Not really. You get scared a little.

Now, I never said it was a good way to get information out of people. I'm sure it gets annoying after a while, and you give false information just to make it stop after a while, ie. Three-months-guy. There are better ways, but this is not torture.

Proof: I just poured water up my nose, over a sink, and a full glass. My nose burns a little, and sure I was a little scared to do it, but I don't think I just tortured myself.

Originally Posted by [SomeGuy]

O', what you have described there is injury. I never said that a papercut isn't an injury, but injury != torture. What you have just said implies that injury is torture. Now, I wouldn't like to get waterboarded, and I wouldn't like to get papercuts daily, but is that really qualified to be torture?

If my friend threw something at me and it hit my arm, resulting in a bruise, then that is not torture. However, it is injury.

It is true that current views on torture express ideas of extreme humiliation or extreme pain. That is torture. Small amounts of injury are not torture.

According to the UN Convention Against Torture, torture is:
" ...any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.
—UN Convention Against Torture

Notice in the beginning: "...severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person..."

Is a bit of water going up the nose "severe...suffering"?

Originally Posted by [SomeGuy]

I have come close to drowning. Was it scary? Yes.

But: Was my whole head underwater, upside-down? Yes. In waterboarding, you are put on a board, belly up. They dump a bucket of water on your face. That's not pushing somebody's head underwater for extended periods of time.

Originally Posted by [SomeGuy]

It's not a constant flow, and it's not pumped into you. It's not an extended period of time. It also doesn't cause physical harm. The most it will cause is annoyance and a little bit of fear.

Getting your head pushed into a pool of water for extended periods of time, let up for a few gasps, and pushed again, is torture. That wil case pain in the lungs, serious fear, and so on.

There is a huge difference there. I think that the difference in severity is large enough to accuse one as an act of torture, and the other not.

Once again, your final point is the same as the dunking. Pigglywiggly-bagging, the way you described it, is constant. Essentially, it's the same as dunking, without water.

Originally Posted by [SomeGuy]

And the guy was waterboarded for THREE MONTHS before he said anything. If it really scared him/hurt him, he would have said something the first time. Besides, what he gave us was probably false info anyway. I never said waterboarding was an accurate way to get information, but it is not torture.

then you need to say why you think it is not.

Complete.

In most cases they stopped water boarding as a part of training to resist torture, because it would break the soldier. As for prisoners of war, a ton of them have had physiological problems due to torture used against them. Water boarding being one of them.

Its hard to know what percentage of people who have been water boarded suffer permanent harm, as its illegal and always done in secret. Its against the US constitution, the Genevra convention, and against the law by the UN.

However the technique has been around for a very long time, and people know what happens. This isn't theoretical , we know it. The reason people argue for it uses however, is it doesn't leave outwards signs that the person has been tortured. You can't see the damage done to the lungs just by looking at the person and you can deny the physiological stuff. Where is the proof? That is why people want to use it, as compared to things that live visible scars and stuff.

I was asking only about waterboarding performed on U.S. special forces (before asking about the three terrorist leaders) since that is waterboarding done the right way, which the U.S. admits to using on three terrorist leaders. I am not asking about waterboarding done the wrong way. The waterboarding used on special forces was meant to teach soldiers how not to break, so they got past the point where most people break. How screwed up are THEY as a result? Did THEY suffer lung damage or brain suffocation? Do THEY have resulting psychological issues? What about the three terrorist leaders the U.S. has waterboarded?

Of course you were. Because you don't want to deal with the thousands of other cases. Obviously anything done to our own people are the most mild as we dont want to permanently harm them. Yet even the mild version where the person knows they are not in danger, they still have serve reactions to it and break down.

As for the terrorists leaders, how do I know if they have psychological issues? If they cry themselves to sleep every night, and piss their pants whenever they go near water, how on earth would I know? You think they would actually reveal that?

Though even if you think water boarding is a mild inconvenience despite the fact that everyone who has gone through and nearly all government organizes in the world consider it torture, why would you use it? Why use a 500 year old torture technique when the modern methods of interrogation are far superior?

Originally Posted by Alric

Of course you were. Because you don't want to deal with the thousands of other cases. Obviously anything done to our own people are the most mild as we dont want to permanently harm them. Yet even the mild version where the person knows they are not in danger, they still have serve reactions to it and break down.

The thousands of other cases? Tell me about thousands of other cases in which the United States has performed it. You can't... We don't know of any. Again, I am against using waterboarding the wrong way. Also again, the special forces train to extend their breaking points, so they go past the average breaking points.

Originally Posted by Alric

As for the terrorists leaders, how do I know if they have psychological issues? If they cry themselves to sleep every night, and piss their pants whenever they go near water, how on earth would I know? You think they would actually reveal that?

In other words, you don't know of it happening.

Originally Posted by Alric

Though even if you think water boarding is a mild inconvenience despite the fact that everyone who has gone through and nearly all government organizes in the world consider it torture, why would you use it? Why use a 500 year old torture technique when the modern methods of interrogation are far superior?

I already said it is a nightmare and an assault. I just don't think it passes the boundary of "torture".

You are again talking about waterboarding done the wrong way. Please get off that. I don't support it. This is getting old.


While we are talking about this, here is a link for you to consider. It lists foiled terrorist attacks and terrorist arrests since 9/11. You can read about the stopped attempts to bomb a subway by Madison Square Garden in New York, to blow up 10 passenger airplanes in England, to light up a fuel line at the JFK Airport in New York and a nearby neighborhood, to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, and others. Pay special attention to the information that was gotten out of Khallid Sheik Muhammed, especially if you love Bill Clinton. Guess how they got the information out of him.

http://www.heritage.org/research/Hom...nse/bg2085.cfm

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

While we are talking about this, here is a link for you to consider. It lists foiled terrorist attacks and terrorist arrests since 9/11. You can read about the stopped attempts to bomb a subway by Madison Square Garden in New York, to blow up 10 passenger airplanes in England, to light up a fuel line at the JFK Airport in New York and a nearby neighborhood, to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, and others. Pay special attention to the information that was gotten out of Khallid Sheik Muhammed, especially if you love Bill Clinton. Guess how they got the information out of him.

http://www.heritage.org/research/Hom...nse/bg2085.cfm

Oh, I see, the US foils terrorist attacks by inconveniencing and annoying their captives. Harden The Fuck Up, terrorists!