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i dont know of a man who wouldn't stoop to savagery towards the predator to save his children.
So our commitment to civility in some cir stances should give way to utter barbarism in other cir stances? In essence, we believe in civility except where we deem it expedient to stoop to a level that we've voluntarily agreed to eschew.
i dont know of a man who wouldn't stoop to savagery towards the predator to save his children.
Torture of prisoners always happen in time of war and the US has used it just like any other country does.
Again, I ask you to read the Geneva Conventions and find such a ban on non-signatories. In fact, the Geneva Conventions specifically excludes combatants such as al Qaeda from Convention protections...and, not until our current conflict has anyone questioned that distinction.
If waterboarding is barbaric, what does that make beheading, real torture (that leaves real injuries), and desecration of corpses by burning, dragging through the streets, and hanging from lampposts?
Just curious if you can make a distinction...
Approximately 50% of the populations considers the U. S. Government to be their nanny and provider, yes.
We've come nowhere close.
There are signs we intend to engage in real torture? Do tell. I mean, we've only been in this war for six years...and, are winning...at what point do we start burning with blowtorches and irons? When do we start drilling holes in the bodies and poking the eyes with forks? When do we start videotaping the beheadings and summary executions and posting them on the web?
I may be a liberal but even I know there are cir stances when even I would do what goes against my normal judgement. But that doesn't make it right. I may not agree with it....but I can understand it.
God only knows what has gone on by our troops/government
in past wars. We know the public utterances but have no
real idea of what really happened under actual conditions.
I do know that after the wars in Europe and Asia (WWII)
that the occupying forces took what they wanted, when
they wanted it and you have to wonder if maybe some
of the people on the receiving end didn't consider that
a form of torture. Like losing ones home and you are out
in the cold looking for shelter.
Does endorsing recognized forms of torture and disregarding the Geneva Convention put our soldiers at more risk in present and future wars??
Again, that strikes me as some sort of moral relativism -- as long as we're not as bad as the terrorists, we're okay. It seems relatively clear that the waterboarding technique is something that we've agreed we wouldn't use against certain enemies, presumably because the signatories to the Geneva Convention agree to not employ torture techniques and because most of the world agrees that waterboarding is a torture technique.
That waterboarding isn't as bad as what jihadists are doing doesn't strike me as a justification for its use where it would otherwise be legally prohibited.
Meanwhile, a Guantanamo legal adviser refuses to say whether Iranians Waterboarding Americans Would Be Torture....
Watch it: LinkDuring a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “The Legal Rights of Guantanamo Detainees” this morning, Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, the legal adviser at Guantanamo Bay, repeatedly refused to call the hypothetical waterboarding of an American pilot by the Iranian military torture. “I’m not equipped to answer that question,” said Hartmann.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who asked the hypothetical, pushed Hartmann on his answer, asking him directly if it would be a “violation of the Geneva Convention”:
GRAHAM: You mean you’re not equipped to give a legal opinion as to whether or not Iranian military waterboarding, secret security agents waterboarding downed airmen is a violation of the Geneva Convention?
HARTMANN: I am not prepared to answer that question, Senator.
After Hartmann twice refused to answer, Graham dismissed him in disgust, saying he had “no further questions.”
Former al Qaeda logistics chief Abu Zubaydah was captured by the CIA in March 2002 in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
I don't agree that it's torture and you, yourself, only claim that "most of the world" agrees that it is.
meh.
I do agree that it is torture just like John McCain and the man knows his when it comes to this subject.
Wing-nut media keeps repeating that the info gleaned from torture saved American lives by stopping future terra attacks, although they haven't provided any concrete proof that it really has....meanwhile, at least on suspect who was water-boarded admits to making up stories just to stop the torture.....
Washington PostGUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, March 30 -- A high-level al-Qaeda suspect who was in CIA custody for more than four years has alleged that his American captors tortured him into making false confessions about terrorist attacks in the Middle East, according to newly released Pentagon transcripts of a March 14 military tribunal hearing here.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who U.S. officials believe was involved in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and who allegedly organized the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, told a panel of military officers that he was repeatedly tortured during his imprisonment and that he admitted taking part in numerous terrorism plots because of the mistreatment.
Bush acknowledged the existence of secret CIA prisons abroad Sept. 6, 2006, as he called for the authority to try prisoners by military commissions. On Jan. 18, 2007, the Pentagon released its rules for trying detainees.
CIA'S SECRET PRISONS
Washington Post reporter Dana Priest reported on Nov. 2 that the CIA operates a network of secret prisons where it holds terror suspects. Priest was awarded a Pulitzer Prize on April 17 for her beat reporting on the CIA and the War on Terror.
"The detainee states that he was tortured into confession and once he made a confession his captors were happy and they stopped torturing him," Nashiri's representative read to the tribunal, according to the transcript. "Also, the detainee states that he made up stories during the torture in order to get it to stop."
So the US has not provided proof that torture prevented future attacks so it must not be true. On the other hand, we have a detainee stating he made up lies in order to stop bing "tortured" so that MUST be true.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Yeah right, this administration would be the first to pimp to the M$M the successful termination of a possible terra plot.....
To be clearer about my stance, I, myself, only claim that if it is torture -- there seems at least to be a robust debate about that, though we all know by now that a robust debate among extremely smart people is meaningless if Yonivore has already reached a conclusion on the matter -- it is forbidden by the Geneva Convention, which most of the world agrees is a standard worthy of abiding by. That there seems to be a significant consensus that the technique is either torture or is questionably close to being torture just helps to point out the fact that we're lowering our standards and judging the propriety of our actions by measuring those actions against the acts of an enemy whose barbarism we decry.
The geneva convention's intent was to have ettiquette rules for industrialized powers to play by. It only works because both sides will enforce it.
We're in no way in that kind of predicament now.
these are the same liberals who said we were torturing the terrorists by letting dogs bark them!!! come on, wtf... that is not torture...
this is what our country is coming to. just like the no scoring leagues and no spanking. maybe if we put the terrorists in time out for a bit, they will tell us everything and drop their arms.
Glad you recognize that.
Today's front page headline in the Washington Post informs us that an ex-CIA officer who participated in the interrogation of Abu Zubaida believes that the waterboarding of this terrorist "probably saved lives" but cons utes "torture." The interrogator in question, John Kiriakou, says that Zubaida wouldn't provide any information until he was waterboarded. After 35 seconds of that procedure, he broke down. The Post quotes Kiriakou as saying that, as a result of the information the CIA obtained, "several" planned attacks were disrupted. In fact, Kiriakou told ABC's Nightline that the information "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks." Post reporters Dan Eggen and Joby Warrick decided, in other words, to downplay the positive effects of getting Zubaida to talk.
Kiriakou is probably well-positioned to report on the efficacy of the waterboarding of Zubaida and the positive results achieved by virtue of the information the CIA obtained. On the other hand, Kiriakou's view that the technique cons utes torture, which was not his view at the time, seems largely worthless, particularly if one construes it as a legal opinion.
It's understandable that Kiriakou has held conflicting views on whether waterboarding cons utes torture, just as it's understandable that Nancy Pelosi saw nothing objectionable in the procedure when she first was briefed about it. Waterboarding has some elements in common with practices which are universally deemed torture, but lacks other elements. For example, it causes no physical harm; indeed, we subject some of our own servicemen and agents to the procedure. Kiriakou was one of them.
Under these cir stances, a metaphysical discussion of whether waterboarding fits the "torture" category is probably not the best way to decide whether to use the procedure in an exigent case. The more promising approach is to consider the actual practice (not a label) and the level/duration of the distress it inflicts, evaluate its likely efficacy, consider whether less drastic methods will work, and weigh (as best we can) the need for information that the detainee is thought to possess. If Congress objects to this case-by-case approach, it should specifically ban waterboarding.
It's easy to believe that the decision-making process just described would favor the use of waterboarding in at least a few cases, and there’s no indication that we’ve used it more than a few times. Based on Kiriakou's statements, it certainly seems that waterboarding Zubaida was the right call. Those who disagree should explain either (a) how they would have gotten Zubaida to talk or (b) why the lives of innocent people (the ones Kiriakou says were probably saved) should have been put at serious risk to spare this terrorist 35 seconds of extreme duress.
Waterboarding is mentioned in the Geneva Conventions? And, if it is -- which version? The one the Japanese utilized in WWII that actually did result in deaths or the one being employed by the current U. S. Intelligence agencies that has been used a total of three times and, by all accounts, poses absolutely no risk of death.
You're joking, right?
Waterboarding (in the version used today) <> any of the acts of barbarism employed by our current enemies.
Last edited by Yonivore; 12-12-2007 at 12:39 AM.
Kiriakou has made the rounds on all the talking-head shows, ABC, CNN, of course, FAUX news yada...yada... to me this guy is the perfect propaganda plant...I mean, he can say that terra was avoided by torturing these men without having to provide any proof what-so-ever and the M$M will eat that up all day long...Today's front page headline in the Washington Post informs us that an ex-CIA officer who participated in the interrogation of Abu Zubaida believes that the waterboarding of this terrorist "probably saved lives" but cons utes "torture." The interrogator in question, John Kiriakou, says that Zubaida wouldn't provide any information until he was waterboarded. After 35 seconds of that procedure, he broke down. The Post quotes Kiriakou as saying that, as a result of the information the CIA obtained, "several" planned attacks were disrupted. In fact, Kiriakou told ABC's Nightline that the information "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks." Post reporters Dan Eggen and Joby Warrick decided, in other words, to downplay the positive effects of getting Zubaida to talk.
...Where's the proof John? There, I did the M$M's job for them.....
Article IWaterboarding is mentioned in the Geneva Conventions? And, if it is -- which version? The one the Japanese utilized in WWII that actually did result in deaths or the one being employed by the current U. S. Intelligence agencies that has been used a total of three times and, by all accounts, poses absolutely no risk of death.
1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means 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.
2. This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, G.A. res. 39/46, [annex, 39 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 51) at 197, U.N. Doc. A/39/51 (1984)], entered into force June 26, 1987.
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