Waterboarding used 266 times on 2 suspects

[bush_cheney2004]

.....My own opinion about all this is: does it work? (And I would offer that question as a reasonable first defence of Western Civilization.)

That's really the only important consideration for me, not the moral handwringing and wailing about "superiority". If actionable intel can be obtained with such methods, then they should certainly be incorporated into interrogations.

Name, rank, and serial number are the stuff of Hollywood, not real life POW training or experience in the past. Hell, I can recall military hazing incidents that were far worse than waterboarding...and that was just for fun!

Edited April 23, 2009 by bush_cheney2004

[BubberMiley]

War, when fought against thugs who don't play by the rules, isn't about moral superiority. It's about winning.

Right. And they will certainly lose. But the problem is you need to clarify just who are the thugs who don't play by the rules, because on your terms it gets all fuzzy.

[jdobbin]

My own opinion about all this is: does it work? (And I would offer that question as a reasonable first defence of Western Civilization.)

The evidence that it works is inconclusive. Some say it helped create actionable intelligence while others say it led them down the wrong path many a time.

As far as your contention that it is benign, a few medical studies show that it can lead to death in custody.

I know some people don't care about those things but since you are talking about the defence of western civilization maybe we should start with some principles that flout those principles.

Edited April 23, 2009 by jdobbin

[JerrySeinfeld]

Right. And they will certainly lose. But the problem is you need to clarify just who are the thugs who don't play by the rules, because on your terms it gets all fuzzy.

I'm not sure about that. You see, throughout history, in every war the "west" has ever fought, our soldiers have been involved in some pretty shady stuff with the endgame of victory for the good guys.

It's only during today's Iraq war in the age of instant information and the microscope media - which, by the way, largely opposes the war - that these indiscretions get scrutinized.

These kinds of tactics have always been used by our side as well as theirs - where do you think the "need" for the geneva conventions even came from?

But the geneva conventions are kind of like Kyoto - everyone signs on, then no one follows it.

To live in some kind of dreamworld where our side lives in some kind of "moral high ground" that we've always occupied and always cornered the market on is naive and dreamy - kind of like Obama's entire presidency.

The reason the scrutiny is so heavy isn't because of some long-held "moral high ground". That's just bullshit being fed by people who oppose the war - which is clearly evident on this forum.

It's actually kind of sad that the importance of the battle between our side and Islamofascism has actually been reduced to a petty argument about the treatment of a handful of mass murderers and those who have turned this into the main issue should be ashamed of themselves. In the past, entire nations went to war - even the folks back home. Today, war has been reduced by the elite left into a ghettoized function performed by someone else whilst the left stays home and bashes the entire effort based upon some hard nosed interrogation techniques while the enemy fights with both hands free.

Sad, really.

Did you know that one of the most commonly referred-to techniques taught to Terrorists and Al Qaeda is to compain of "prisoner abuse"? Why? Because they know our society's penchant for self hatred and apology.

Or as one famous Imam said of Islam: "WE WILL USE YOUR DEMOCRACY TO DESTROY YOUR DEMOCRACY"

Edited April 23, 2009 by JerrySeinfeld

[myata]

Correct, a good topic to explore. How exactly do we know who'd be the good guy here? Strong, impregnable belief in own right? Divine revelation? Certainly nothing to do with the way one acts!

[Cuzzin E]

Waterboarding really isn't so bad. These guys should be thankful they aren't using garrotes or electroshocking their pink bits

[sharkman]

Good comments Jerry. In WWII, German Cities were carpet bombed by the Allies and it was accepted as necessary by Joe 6-pack. Now since the MSM has cameras and people in place for every conflict, any civilian that gets a scratch is scrutinized with a magnifying glass, while terrorists are defended for their actions(Osama's actions are justified and the Muslim faith is not really violent. As long as you are not a woman or gay).

In this example waterboarding is held up as an evil practice. Its results are ignored or lied about and the real torture and ritualistic murder the terrorists commit in the name of their god is swept under the rug. The left has two separate standards it employs, which shows it to be untrustworthy.

In the real world, future attacks and plans that evil men hold secret must be extracted from them before they are unleashed on innocents. These evil men will not give up their secret plots willingly because they want to kill as many people as they can. There is only one way to get them to talk, and if the left wants to call waterboarding torture and is successful in outlawing it, this one thing could give Osama and others like him enough to gain the upper hand. Picture many more 9/11 style attacks across the world, and countries like North Korea turning to state sponsored terrorism in increasing ways.

Edited April 23, 2009 by sharkman

[Moonlight Graham]

That is a diversion - and you are an apologist.

The thousands in the World Trade Centre were not occupying anything other than their lives.

Islams started this and we need to finish it

Unless of course you want to live like they do.

Obama is an idiot at the best of times.

I am sure you will find a way to blame it all on Bush

Borg

I'm not apologizing for anyone. What the terrorists did on 9/11 was disgusting and wrong. But so has many things the U.S. gov't (among other Western gov'ts, including Canada) have done.

If you think radical Islams started all this on Sept. 11, 2001, you would be incorrect. The U.S. and the West has been mucking around in the middle-east for centuries. British colonialism, the U.S.-backed coup of a democratically-elected leader in Iran in 1953, Iraq vs Iran vs Iraq war in the 80's. I could go on. We've been killing Muslims both covertly and overtly for quite some time, many thousands of them innocent civilians. Funny how we only wake-up only when the violence hits our own borders.

The actions of both the Muslim extremists and our own gov't's have been shameful, and look at what it has got us? Mostly just whole lot of dead people.

[Rue]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30302830/

I know for some the methods used presents no problems. However, the value of the intelligence derived is questionable. Do people who are tortured give useful information?

Moreover, if waterboarding is not torture according to some who were in the previous administration, why do they think so? And why do they think it is useful?

The Bush regime deliberately violated the U.S. constitution by trying to re-write the law to state cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners despite being against the U.S. constitution was not by trying to redefine what the definition of torture and cruel and inhumane was. It did not fool the U.S. Supreme Court.

Waterboarding constitutes a clear violation of international legal treaties on torture as well as U.S. constitutional law.

For those of you that claim it is necessary may I suggest you and I are not in the position to know what in fact is available to government agents to be able to interogate terrorists or suspected terrorists.

I suspect there are other methods that could be used as well.

Yes there is a real issue-if you can save innocent lives by being able to torture a confession out of someone some would argue the ends justifies the means.

Others would argue in the long run it simply blurs the line between terrorist and the interogator and simply incites more terror and turns the interogator and the system he represents into just as much of a terrorist.

Some would argue it is crucial to maintain a moral high ground if we are to be able to argue against terrorism.

It is a complex issue and it brings up the age old question-to defeat a terrorist do you literally need to become one....

I personally am not naive-I know there may be a need to use certain methods to save lives-on the other hand do we want our nation turned into a police state that tortures the innocent and becomes inhumane? Do we want to become the very fundamentalist terrorists we are trying to resist?

I say no, we have to maintain a moral high ground and balance it with more effective ways to interogate such as medication.

Let's face it, to try get info from a terrorist however, may require something other then hugging them and asking them to understand where we are coming from man and maybe a group hug.

Part of me is a lawyer that says obey the law or we become animals. Part of me is tempted to say, use a phone book so you show no bruises. Its tempting to want to put the law to the side. All I am saying is it is a slipperly slope that can lead to a Nazi Stalinist state very quickly.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Whatever.

The US successfully foiled a 9-11 style attack on Los Angeles thanks to information extracted from Khaleid Sheikh Mohamed during waterboarding.

If not for the information, maybe susan sarandon and sean penn would have been blown up then we wouldn't have to debate this phony baloney red herring.

I'm not even angry any more at Obama's complete stupidity; I'm baffled by it.

The US "extends a hand" to Iran and not even a week later Ahmedinajadh shows up at a UN function and gives a venomous racist diatraibe for all the world to see.

Keep dreamin Barack. Meanwhile in the real world, the thugs are dancing with joy at your Naivity. Your attempts at worldliness may be playing well back home on "The View", but your enemies see them for what they are: weakness.

If Barry actually goes through with closing gitmo and banning "aggressive interrogation", don't be surprised to see more attacks - if not in the US, then somewhere else.

Of course, the New York Times already has a plan in place for those attacks.

from the NYT:

Mr. Obama and his allies need to discredit the techniques he has banned. Otherwise, in the event of a future terrorist attack, critics may blame his decision to rein in CIA interrogators

Wow. un freaking believable. Not only does the left realize that their actions are endagering people, but they're already making excuses for making the world a more dangerous place.

Edited April 27, 2009 by JerrySeinfeld

[sharkman]

Yeah, Jerry, that sounds like the left to me.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, waterboarding is used as a training technique in some U.S. forces. Funny, I haven't heard the left try to ban it in this context on its own citizens! If something is wrong, then it's wrong.

Rue, you mentioned the US Supreme Court, and I believe they struck down legislation or something like that connected with what constitutes torture, right? I just wonder why they let it stand so long before striking it down if enhanced techniques used were so wrong.

[WIP]

Whatever.

The US successfully foiled a 9-11 style attack on Los Angeles thanks to information extracted from Khaleid Sheikh Mohamed during waterboarding.

Considering all of the other lies, like missing WMD's and other terrorist plots that have either vanished or been shown as less than meets the eye, I would like to see some evidence before I believe this L.A. plot was something that was actually real....and I'm not just going to take the word of one of Bush's speechwriters as verification.

Wow. un freaking believable. Not only does the left realize that their actions are endagering people, but they're already making excuses for making the world a more dangerous place.

And that doesn't deal with the problem of the "ends justifying the means." Waterboarding was first declared to be torture by a U.S. court, almost 100 years ago, and the U.S. has even executed adversaries, such as Japanese officers for waterboarding American POW's after WWII. Well, if it's wrong for others to torture American soldiers, then the U.S. should have never violated its own ethical standards for political expediency, as it did during the Bush Administration. And Bush & Co. likely wouldn't have needed to go down this road if they were paying attention to the intelligence reports warning of possible attacks on U.S. soil before 9/11. Instead, they were caught with their pants down and panicked, and started flailing around as they were panicked by every crazy story they extracted from Abu Zubaidah under torture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Zubaydah#...aydah.27s_Intel

And part 2 of the torture story is how many new enemies were created by Abu Ghraib and the use of torture.

[JerrySeinfeld]

So, one minute you're upset because Bush didn't heed the warnings of 9-11.

And the next, you're angry at "Bush & Co." for heeding warnings on potential attacks against LA.

Wierd.

[Shady]

Waterboarding being used 266 times on 2 people is disgusting.

The disingenuousness of your statement (and the title of this thread) is even more disgusting. The number 266 refers to everytime a drop of water lands on a terrorist, which can be dozens of times during one waterboarding.

Waterboarding isn't torture. It's used as training in the United States military. There's always a physician present, and there's no chance of drowning or death. It's used as a last resort by professionals after the use off all regular interrogation methods have failed. Waterboarding works, has worked, and has saved lives. Period.