A Conservative's view on waterboarding

[Valerie]

What is YOUR answer?

That anyone's answer is irrelevant to US policy on legal interrogations.



There is no proof that torturing someone for info will result in the info you need to save a life, so it is a false premise as if it's a guarantee, also it would never occur to me to TORTURE anyone under those circumstances... And if I ever ended up breaking a law trying to get my child back I would plead my case before the court.

NO, it's not.....Torture is illegal in all 50 states.........And there is no proof that torture doesn't result in the info you need to save a life.....None whatsoever!

Personally, my twin daughters and son are my life........I would torture the piss out of somebody if that was all that was left to save their life, and take whatever punishment befell me......As long as they live, that's all that matters.

Now, why shouldn't we used enhanced interrogation to save american lives?

It's not illegal to deprive sleep, cause hunger, cause cold, subject to loud music, or use our version of waterboarding........Our version of waterboarding is the same used on our own troops......So, what the hell is the problem?

Contrary to Foxfyre's implications, other interrogation techniques were never mentioned as torture... NO ONE said terrorists shouldn't endure discomfort or "unpleasantries", as she put it... These other interrogation techniques have proven effective and legal.

The few who seem to be commenting--and I'm not going to say they are typical of ALL liberals/leftwingers--mostly seem to be saying that they would not use any form of discomfort or unpleasantry on a terrorist even if it meant their family would be brutally murdered

 

[GoneBezerk]

Colin Powell....sellout, liar and Obama supporter.
McCain....projecting his POW experience into the debate, irrelevant emotional attachment.
Petreaus...will not go against his boss in public.
Tom Ridge....liberal parading as a Republican.

As for the rest of the US military, from us to you....SHUT THE FUCK UP. You don't speak for us and shut the hell up about terrorists should be treated like US military.

That is enough to talking to a twit like you. You can go find Santa Claus to support your stupidity, but you are still an idiot.

A lot of right wing lawyers don't have the balls to step out of the liberal lanes when it comes to law. They are part of the same community and want to be "respected" by their liberal colleagues, so they will go along with the BS.

Any lawyer that gives a terrorist the status of legal combatant on the battlefield and POW status when captured, is full of shit. I would tell that to any JAG officer that comes across my path.

What about Colin Powell, John McCain, Tom Ridge, General Petraeus, General Sanchez and the rest of the US Military who stand to be compromised.............NOT LIBERALS.

Who cares WHO you found to support your bullshit. I can find others that say you're full of shit, like me.

Woopty doo. Go Berzerk, why don't ya...







The point is they are conservatives, not liberals.

 

[Valerie]

Colin Powell....sellout, liar and Obama supporter.
McCain....projecting his POW experience into the debate, irrelevant emotional attachment.
Petreaus...will not go against his boss in public.
Tom Ridge....liberal parading as a Republican.

As for the rest of the US military, from us to you....SHUT THE FUCK UP. You don't speak for us and shut the hell up about terrorists should be treated like US military.

That is enough to talking to a twit like you. You can go find Santa Claus to support your stupidity, but you are still an idiot.

Go tell it to General Petreaus, n00b.

A lot of right wing lawyers don't have the balls to step out of the liberal lanes when it comes to law. They are part of the same community and want to be "respected" by their liberal colleagues, so they will go along with the BS.

Any lawyer that gives a terrorist the status of legal combatant on the battlefield and POW status when captured, is full of shit. I would tell that to any JAG officer that comes across my path.

What about Colin Powell, John McCain, Tom Ridge, General Petraeus, General Sanchez and the rest of the US Military who stand to be compromised.............NOT LIBERALS.

Woopty doo. Go Berzerk, why don't ya...







The point is they are conservatives, not liberals.

[/QUOTE]

 

[Wicked Jester]

That anyone's answer is irrelevant to US policy on legal interrogations.



There is no proof that torturing someone for info will result in the info you need to save a life, so it is a false premise as if it's a guarantee, also it would never occur to me to TORTURE anyone under those circumstances... And if I ever ended up breaking a law trying to get my child back I would plead my case before the court.

NO, it's not.....Torture is illegal in all 50 states.........And there is no proof that torture doesn't result in the info you need to save a life.....None whatsoever!

Personally, my twin daughters and son are my life........I would torture the piss out of somebody if that was all that was left to save their life, and take whatever punishment befell me......As long as they live, that's all that matters.

Now, why shouldn't we used enhanced interrogation to save american lives?

It's not illegal to deprive sleep, cause hunger, cause cold, subject to loud music, or use our version of waterboarding........Our version of waterboarding is the same used on our own troops......So, what the hell is the problem?

Contrary to Foxfyre's implications, other interrogation techniques were never mentioned as torture... NO ONE said terrorists shouldn't endure discomfort or "unpleasantries", as she put it... These other interrogation techniques have proven effective and legal.

The few who seem to be commenting--and I'm not going to say they are typical of ALL liberals/leftwingers--mostly seem to be saying that they would not use any form of discomfort or unpleasantry on a terrorist even if it meant their family would be brutally murdered

Fair enough.

Just so we're clear though. Our version of waterboarding is the same used in SERE. It's not torture.......It sucks to be sure. But it's not torture.

Anyhow, thanks for your honesty.

 

[Foxfyre]

That anyone's answer is irrelevant to US policy on legal interrogations.



There is no proof that torturing someone for info will result in the info you need to save a life, so it is a false premise as if it's a guarantee, also it would never occur to me to TORTURE anyone under those circumstances... And if I ever ended up breaking a law trying to get my child back I would plead my case before the court.

NO, it's not.....Torture is illegal in all 50 states.........And there is no proof that torture doesn't result in the info you need to save a life.....None whatsoever!

Personally, my twin daughters and son are my life........I would torture the piss out of somebody if that was all that was left to save their life, and take whatever punishment befell me......As long as they live, that's all that matters.

Now, why shouldn't we used enhanced interrogation to save american lives?

It's not illegal to deprive sleep, cause hunger, cause cold, subject to loud music, or use our version of waterboarding........Our version of waterboarding is the same used on our own troops......So, what the hell is the problem?

Contrary to Foxfyre's implications, other interrogation techniques were never mentioned as torture... NO ONE said terrorists shouldn't endure discomfort or "unpleasantries", as she put it... These other interrogation techniques have proven effective and legal.

The few who seem to be commenting--and I'm not going to say they are typical of ALL liberals/leftwingers--mostly seem to be saying that they would not use any form of discomfort or unpleasantry on a terrorist even if it meant their family would be brutally murdered

The fallacy in your argument, however, is that I have not focused or been concerned with water boarding so much as the inference by some that a terrorist must be treated humanely such as by Geneva Convention rules even if we KNOW he has information of the intended attack on hundreds or thousands of innocent people.

Some have been adament that it's stupid to consider policy on a hypothetical, and I maintain a whole lot of triage, disaster relief, search and rescue, defense procedures, etc. training is done on nothing more than hypotheticals.

If on September 10, 2001, I had started a thread on what we could do to prevent terrorists from stealing passenger planes and flying them into the WTC, the Pentagon, etc., I bet the same folks would not have wanted to discuss that because it was a 'hypothetical' that could never happen. And the same sort of mentality prevails when the subject of the Patriot Act and other similar policy comes up. Those that resist that kind of reaction or process do not even want to talk about scenarios that go into the consideration of such policy. They just want to attack the policy and those who approved it without any discussion of why or whether it was necessary.

The policy is and should be that we do not subject people to torture or enhanced interrogation to see if they know anything or for anybody's perverse entertainment.

Once that is established, my sole argument in this thread has been to focus on what we expect our leaders to do to protect us when following the policy isn't going to do that. Is the policy to be sacred? Or the lives of innocent people that are at risk?

Was the Secret Service agent right to shoot off that toe? Once somebody comes to grips with that, everything else is a bit clearer.

 

[Flopper]

CIA, FBI, and other law enforcement say torturing prisoners does not work. It is counterproductive and does not yield good information. An FBI agent, who has interrogation many terrorist suspects states at the beginning of each interrogatory they tell the suspect that they and their family will not be harmed in anyway. The purpose of this statement is to counter the Al-Qaeda indoctrination that if caught the enemy will torture you and your family to extract information. Information which is gained through torture is always questionable. But what is not questionable is that it makes martyrs of the prisoners and enforces the propaganda of the enemy.

Much of what people believe about the effectiveness of torture in interrogations comes from books and movies about WWII. The fact is Nazi torture was very ineffective at extracting good intelligence.

Hanns-Joachim Gottlob Scharffis, called the "Master Interrogator" of the Luftwaffe and possibly all of Nazi Germany was highly praised for the success of his techniques, especially considering he never used physical means to obtain the required information. After the end of World War II, Scharff was invited by the United States Air Force to give lectures on his interrogation techniques and first-hand experiences. The U.S. military later incorporated Scharff’s methods into its curriculum at its interrogation schools. Many of Scharff's methods are still taught in US Army interrogation schools. Scharff was opposed to physically abusing prisoners with the intent to obtain information. Taught on the job, Scharff instead relied upon the Luftwaffe's approved list of techniques which mostly involved making the interrogator seem as if he is his prisoner's greatest advocate while in captivity.

Hanns Scharff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pacific Views: Interrogation without torture

 

[bodecea]

Colin Powell....sellout, liar and Obama supporter.
McCain....projecting his POW experience into the debate, irrelevant emotional attachment.
Petreaus...will not go against his boss in public.
Tom Ridge....liberal parading as a Republican.

As for the rest of the US military, from us to you....SHUT THE FUCK UP. You don't speak for us and shut the hell up about terrorists should be treated like US military.

That is enough to talking to a twit like you. You can go find Santa Claus to support your stupidity, but you are still an idiot.

A lot of right wing lawyers don't have the balls to step out of the liberal lanes when it comes to law. They are part of the same community and want to be "respected" by their liberal colleagues, so they will go along with the BS.

Any lawyer that gives a terrorist the status of legal combatant on the battlefield and POW status when captured, is full of shit. I would tell that to any JAG officer that comes across my path.

What about Colin Powell, John McCain, Tom Ridge, General Petraeus, General Sanchez and the rest of the US Military who stand to be compromised.............NOT LIBERALS.

Woopty doo. Go Berzerk, why don't ya...







The point is they are conservatives, not liberals.

I'm retired military and I think that we are better than those we fight and it is a sad, sad thing to learn we are torturing people. Hard to keep saying we are better. Now...if we don't MIND being as bad as them....by all means....have at it.

 

[Wicked Jester]

CIA, FBI, and other law enforcement say torturing prisoners does not work. It is counterproductive and does not yield good information. An FBI agent, who has interrogation many terrorist suspects states at the beginning of each interrogatory they tell the suspect that they and their family will not be harmed in anyway. The purpose of this statement is to counter the Al-Qaeda indoctrination that if caught the enemy will torture you and your family to extract information. Information which is gained through torture is always questionable. But what is not questionable is that it makes martyrs of the prisoners and enforces the propaganda of the enemy.

Much of what people believe about the effectiveness of torture in interrogations comes from books and movies about WWII. The fact is Nazi torture was very ineffective at extracting good intelligence.

Hanns-Joachim Gottlob Scharffis, called the "Master Interrogator" of the Luftwaffe and possibly all of Nazi Germany was highly praised for the success of his techniques, especially considering he never used physical means to obtain the required information. After the end of World War II, Scharff was invited by the United States Air Force to give lectures on his interrogation techniques and first-hand experiences. The U.S. military later incorporated Scharff’s methods into its curriculum at its interrogation schools. Many of Scharff's methods are still taught in US Army interrogation schools. Scharff was opposed to physically abusing prisoners with the intent to obtain information. Taught on the job, Scharff instead relied upon the Luftwaffe's approved list of techniques which mostly involved making the interrogator seem as if he is his prisoner's greatest advocate while in captivity.

Hanns Scharff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pacific Views: Interrogation without torture

Yeah, that's all fine and dandy.....We're not torturing, we are using legal enhanced interrogation teqniques when necessary. And rightfully so.

 

[frazzledgear]

Your agreement is of no actual value to the discussion, however, since that claim is unsupported, factually.

If instead of blowing off the top of Osama's head he had been taken alive and we discovered that he had info that we desperately needed to prevent him and his al qaeda pals from setting off a dirty bomb in the middle of town during the second leg of the Triple Crown (so much for the Pimlico race track?) --

torturing him MIGHT yield initially unreliable information. But possibly if we persisted in extracting the information from him by punishing him for every untruthful response, he just MIGHT get "trained" to respond promptly AND honestly.

Yet, torture makes us feel all icky. So as a matter of national policy and pride we should refrain from insisting that he give up every scrap of the plans to us?

Bye bye Baltimore? And the winner of the Preakness Stakes? A photo finish:

"American Virtue Intact" finishes a NOSE behind "Osamasdead Butgetsrevenge."

The top interrogation experts all say torture doesn't work:

The military agency which actually provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects warned the Pentagon in 2002 that those techniques would produce "unreliable information."
Army Field Manual 34-52 Chapter 1 says:
"Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear."

A declassified FBI e-mail dated May 10, 2004, regarding interrogation at Guantanamo states "[we] explained to [the Department of Defense], FBI has been successful for many years obtaining confessions via non-confrontational interviewing techniques." (see also this)

Brigadier General David R. Irvine, retired Army Reserve strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner interrogation and military law for 18 years with the Sixth Army Intelligence School, says torture doesn't work.....

What you wrote is a total mishmash of crap -essentially comparing apples with oranges. If you call waterboarding "torture" right off the bat, you get to totally avoid the real argument about whether waterboarding is or is not "torture" in the first place, allowing the debate to immediately move to a different level and leading people to view waterboarding in the same light as Spanish Inquisition stuff of stuffing a person in the Iron Maiden or putting them on the rack in order to force them to confess to some plot against the King or something. And that makes that a false argument and even a straw man argument where you first propose something that isn't being argued at all, knock it down -and pretend it somehow proves a totally different argument! Bullshit.

But see how quickly you insist on changing the entire discussion -labeling waterboarding "torture" as if that ends the debate and moving straight into claims that it can't possibly be an effective tool no matter how it is used! REALLY? If its TORTURE -then why the fuck was it being done to OUR Navy Seals as part of their training? Why was it being used in other military branches as part of THEIR training as well? Its either torture or it isn't -why its being done doesn't make it torture!

And we aren't talking about using it to extract a confession of any kind -but for the purpose of gaining important information. The claims that waterboarding has provided NO worthwhile or important information is just a flat out LIE and I don't care who the hell you want to quote insisting it has not because they lack the authority of those who claim it has.

The CIA insists TO THIS DAY -and changing Presidents and Directors hasn't changed their claims - that waterboarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed allowed them to prevent a 9/11 style attack that was already being staged for Los Angeles, giving them the critical information that allowed them identify, find and take out an entire terror cell assigned to carry out the attack. Information they knew NOTHING about prior to waterboarding him. And thereby saving hundreds, if not thousands of lives. And let's get real -there is no way we as private citizens are going to be privy to all the information that was gained and will only hear about any information they believe will not increase the risk to anyone else, will not sacrifice ongoing investigations or sacrifice any methods of intelligence collection. In other words -we won't hear about most of it. Everyone you quote insisting how "torture" doesn't work and has provided no actionable intelligence are either 1. political hacks who would rather sacrifice the truth than their political ideology; 2. completely ignorant and didn't bother to do the research before shooting off their mouth to realize they actually have NOTHING to really back up their UNINFORMED OPINION; or 3. flat out liars.

Its easy to sit back from the comfort of your own living room smugly insisting waterboarding hasn't once provided any worthwhile intelligence, much less actually saved lives when it isn't YOUR life that was saved or that of someone you love! But it is a FACT waterboarding Khalid Sheik Muhammed prevented another terrorist attack that was to take place in Los Angeles. Now maybe smugly claiming that's not true when you aren't in the loop and need to ignore those who actually are who insist otherwise provides you with some kind of weird comfort -but it is a dishonest one. You do it because you NEED it to be true in order to conform with your own world view and you very much need to deny REALITY.

This first article points out that waterboarding used to be a routine part of Navy SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) training but they have stopped using it. NOT because of any risk of possibly causing injury -but because it is so universally effective in extracting information with near 100% of all Navy trainees revealing whatever information they had. It was the training to try and resist waterboarding that was ineffective -NOT the waterboarding itself! (In previous post I seriously underestimated the number of US soldiers who were waterboarded as part of their training -it turns out it is a significantly higher number.) You quote people about how it USUALLY isn't necessary to use harsh techniques while ignoring the fact our military never routinely used them and had strict requirements about when it would even become a legitimate tool! Obviously since only THREE terrorists were ever waterboarded, we are NOT talking about "usually", are we? The JUDICIOUS use of enhanced interrogations is in fact VERY EFFECTIVE!

Once AGAIN -if a specific act is "torture" then it is always torture no matter who is doing it or why they are doing it. It is the ACT itself that makes it torture. Not WHY it is being done. Just like it is the act that makes a murder "murder" -not who did it or who the murdered person was! Get your mind around this one, ok? If waterboarding is "torture" then it means it is ALWAYS torture no matter who it is being done to! That would mean scores of our soldiers were being tortured. It means we allowed a foreign military to torture our soldiers and it means that several different military branches tortured other US soldiers as a matter of ROUTINE training. Many, many more AMERICANS were waterboarded than the three terrorists who were waterboarded.

Oh wait -you must mean its only torture if its done to a would-be mass murdering terrorist but not torture when its done to the person charged with trying to prevent him from committing that mass murder? You can't have it both ways -if its torturing a terrorist, then its torturing OUR soldiers too. But you aren't arguing that scores of US soldiers were "tortured" by having to endure waterboarding themselves though -you aren't interested in the fact the Navy stopped trying to train people to resist waterboarding because waterboarding was nearly 100% effective in extracting information from them and their training to resist it was ineffective. In fact you aren't the least bit concerned about what our own soldiers routinely endured as part of their training. Nope -your concern and false claims are about three mass murdering terrorists you want to pretend didn't provide anything useful, no information that saved lives -because that lie fits in with your preconceived opinion that cannot be touched by the FACTS. And sorry but one of those FACTS is that two different directors of the CIA claim waterboarding provided a WEALTH of critically important information and saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives. PERIOD. And you know what? I believe THEM before the political hacks who weren't even in that loop.

CIA Waterboarding Produced Intel That Stopped Attack on Los Angeles - HUMAN EVENTS

If you’re determined to believe waterboarding had nothing to do with tracking down Bin Laden, don’t listen to Leon Panetta | The Daily Caller Leon Panetta, Director of the CIA himself admitting to Brian Williams that the intelligence leading to bin Laden came from "enhanced interrogation techniques".

The New York Times ignores Panetta

 

[The T]

NO, it's not.....Torture is illegal in all 50 states.........And there is no proof that torture doesn't result in the info you need to save a life.....None whatsoever!

Personally, my twin daughters and son are my life........I would torture the piss out of somebody if that was all that was left to save their life, and take whatever punishment befell me......As long as they live, that's all that matters.

Now, why shouldn't we used enhanced interrogation to save american lives?

It's not illegal to deprive sleep, cause hunger, cause cold, subject to loud music, or use our version of waterboarding........Our version of waterboarding is the same used on our own troops......So, what the hell is the problem?

Contrary to Foxfyre's implications, other interrogation techniques were never mentioned as torture... NO ONE said terrorists shouldn't endure discomfort or "unpleasantries", as she put it... These other interrogation techniques have proven effective and legal.

The few who seem to be commenting--and I'm not going to say they are typical of ALL liberals/leftwingers--mostly seem to be saying that they would not use any form of discomfort or unpleasantry on a terrorist even if it meant their family would be brutally murdered

The fallacy in your argument, however, is that I have not focused or been concerned with water boarding so much as the inference by some that a terrorist must be treated humanely such as by Geneva Convention rules even if we KNOW he has information of the intended attack on hundreds or thousands of innocent people.

Some have been adament that it's stupid to consider policy on a hypothetical, and I maintain a whole lot of triage, disaster relief, search and rescue, defense procedures, etc. training is done on nothing more than hypotheticals.

If on September 10, 2001, I had started a thread on what we could do to prevent terrorists from stealing passenger planes and flying them into the WTC, the Pentagon, etc., I bet the same folks would not have wanted to discuss that because it was a 'hypothetical' that could never happen. And the same sort of mentality prevails when the subject of the Patriot Act and other similar policy comes up. Those that resist that kind of reaction or process do not even want to talk about scenarios that go into the consideration of such policy. They just want to attack the policy and those who approved it without any discussion of why or whether it was necessary.

The policy is and should be that we do not subject people to torture or enhanced interrogation to see if they know anything or for anybody's perverse entertainment.

Once that is established, my sole argument in this thread has been to focus on what we expect our leaders to do to protect us when following the policy isn't going to do that. Is the policy to be sacred? Or the lives of innocent people that are at risk?

Was the Secret Service agent right to shoot off that toe? Once somebody comes to grips with that, everything else is a bit clearer.

Speaking of the Geneva Convention? Terrorists wear the uniform of no country so they are not to be considered 'legal' combatants by definition in the warfare that they have declared on civil society. They are saboteurs, period.

By all rights they should be shot on sight and treated with no regard as to what is termed 'normal military combatants'. As a matter of course? These non-combatants are being treated to military tribunals [GTMO]. I think thay are treated alot more fairly than what I think they deserve.

But that's just me.

 

[Care4all]

the Geneva convention covers the treatment of non combatants as well in the text, i believe...?

good morning Foxfyre

 

[Samson]

the Geneva convention covers the treatment of non combatants as well in the text, i believe...?

good morning Foxfyre

I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to go out of your way to harm them.

good morning Care

 

[Foxfyre]

the Geneva convention covers the treatment of non combatants as well in the text, i believe...?

good morning Foxfyre

Good morning Care

The Geneva Convention does indeed cover the treatments of non combatants which it defines as civilians not involved in hostilities. Non combatant, however, does not apply to a terrorist with information re a weapon of mass destruction intended to murder or maim hundreds or thousands of civilians.

To repeat for the umpteenth time, nobody is advocating torture or enhanced interrogation as routine policy for the United States. We can all agree that neither should be used on anybody just to find out if he or she knows something or for perverse entertainment of anybody. And we can all agree that it should be condemned and anybody engaging in it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But that may not always be the whole picture.

If our ONLY choice is between getting the information from that terrorist, whatever we have to do to get that information, or doing nothing and allowing all those innocent people to be killed or maimed, what is the moral choice?

Was the Secret Service Agent right to shoot off that toe?

To say that such a scenario will never occur or to refuse to consider that is naive at best; dangerously short sighted at worst.

We should expect our leaders to do whatever is necessary to carry out their constitutional mandate to provide the common defense, and intellectual honesty requires that we understand that we can't always be picky about what is and isn't necessary.

 

[Flopper]

The top interrogation experts all say torture doesn't work:

The military agency which actually provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects warned the Pentagon in 2002 that those techniques would produce "unreliable information."
Army Field Manual 34-52 Chapter 1 says:
"Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear."

A declassified FBI e-mail dated May 10, 2004, regarding interrogation at Guantanamo states "[we] explained to [the Department of Defense], FBI has been successful for many years obtaining confessions via non-confrontational interviewing techniques." (see also this)

Brigadier General David R. Irvine, retired Army Reserve strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner interrogation and military law for 18 years with the Sixth Army Intelligence School, says torture doesn't work.....

What you wrote is a total mishmash of crap -essentially comparing apples with oranges. If you call waterboarding "torture" right off the bat, you get to totally avoid the real argument about whether waterboarding is or is not "torture" in the first place, allowing the debate to immediately move to a different level and leading people to view waterboarding in the same light as Spanish Inquisition stuff of stuffing a person in the Iron Maiden or putting them on the rack in order to force them to confess to some plot against the King or something. And that makes that a false argument and even a straw man argument where you first propose something that isn't being argued at all, knock it down -and pretend it somehow proves a totally different argument! Bullshit.

But see how quickly you insist on changing the entire discussion -labeling waterboarding "torture" as if that ends the debate and moving straight into claims that it can't possibly be an effective tool no matter how it is used! REALLY? If its TORTURE -then why the fuck was it being done to OUR Navy Seals as part of their training? Why was it being used in other military branches as part of THEIR training as well? Its either torture or it isn't -why its being done doesn't make it torture!

And we aren't talking about using it to extract a confession of any kind -but for the purpose of gaining important information. The claims that waterboarding has provided NO worthwhile or important information is just a flat out LIE and I don't care who the hell you want to quote insisting it has not because they lack the authority of those who claim it has.

The CIA insists TO THIS DAY -and changing Presidents and Directors hasn't changed their claims - that waterboarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed allowed them to prevent a 9/11 style attack that was already being staged for Los Angeles, giving them the critical information that allowed them identify, find and take out an entire terror cell assigned to carry out the attack. Information they knew NOTHING about prior to waterboarding him. And thereby saving hundreds, if not thousands of lives. And let's get real -there is no way we as private citizens are going to be privy to all the information that was gained and will only hear about any information they believe will not increase the risk to anyone else, will not sacrifice ongoing investigations or sacrifice any methods of intelligence collection. In other words -we won't hear about most of it. Everyone you quote insisting how "torture" doesn't work and has provided no actionable intelligence are either 1. political hacks who would rather sacrifice the truth than their political ideology; 2. completely ignorant and didn't bother to do the research before shooting off their mouth to realize they actually have NOTHING to really back up their UNINFORMED OPINION; or 3. flat out liars.

Its easy to sit back from the comfort of your own living room smugly insisting waterboarding hasn't once provided any worthwhile intelligence, much less actually saved lives when it isn't YOUR life that was saved or that of someone you love! But it is a FACT waterboarding Khalid Sheik Muhammed prevented another terrorist attack that was to take place in Los Angeles. Now maybe smugly claiming that's not true when you aren't in the loop and need to ignore those who actually are who insist otherwise provides you with some kind of weird comfort -but it is a dishonest one. You do it because you NEED it to be true in order to conform with your own world view and you very much need to deny REALITY.

This first article points out that waterboarding used to be a routine part of Navy SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) training but they have stopped using it. NOT because of any risk of possibly causing injury -but because it is so universally effective in extracting information with near 100% of all Navy trainees revealing whatever information they had. It was the training to try and resist waterboarding that was ineffective -NOT the waterboarding itself! (In previous post I seriously underestimated the number of US soldiers who were waterboarded as part of their training -it turns out it is a significantly higher number.) You quote people about how it USUALLY isn't necessary to use harsh techniques while ignoring the fact our military never routinely used them and had strict requirements about when it would even become a legitimate tool! Obviously since only THREE terrorists were ever waterboarded, we are NOT talking about "usually", are we? The JUDICIOUS use of enhanced interrogations is in fact VERY EFFECTIVE!

Once AGAIN -if a specific act is "torture" then it is always torture no matter who is doing it or why they are doing it. It is the ACT itself that makes it torture. Not WHY it is being done. Just like it is the act that makes a murder "murder" -not who did it or who the murdered person was! Get your mind around this one, ok? If waterboarding is "torture" then it means it is ALWAYS torture no matter who it is being done to! That would mean scores of our soldiers were being tortured. It means we allowed a foreign military to torture our soldiers and it means that several different military branches tortured other US soldiers as a matter of ROUTINE training. Many, many more AMERICANS were waterboarded than the three terrorists who were waterboarded.

Oh wait -you must mean its only torture if its done to a would-be mass murdering terrorist but not torture when its done to the person charged with trying to prevent him from committing that mass murder? You can't have it both ways -if its torturing a terrorist, then its torturing OUR soldiers too. But you aren't arguing that scores of US soldiers were "tortured" by having to endure waterboarding themselves though -you aren't interested in the fact the Navy stopped trying to train people to resist waterboarding because waterboarding was nearly 100% effective in extracting information from them and their training to resist it was ineffective. In fact you aren't the least bit concerned about what our own soldiers routinely endured as part of their training. Nope -your concern and false claims are about three mass murdering terrorists you want to pretend didn't provide anything useful, no information that saved lives -because that lie fits in with your preconceived opinion that cannot be touched by the FACTS. And sorry but one of those FACTS is that two different directors of the CIA claim waterboarding provided a WEALTH of critically important information and saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives. PERIOD. And you know what? I believe THEM before the political hacks who weren't even in that loop.

CIA Waterboarding Produced Intel That Stopped Attack on Los Angeles - HUMAN EVENTS

If you’re determined to believe waterboarding had nothing to do with tracking down Bin Laden, don’t listen to Leon Panetta | The Daily Caller Leon Panetta, Director of the CIA himself admitting to Brian Williams that the intelligence leading to bin Laden came from "enhanced interrogation techniques".

The New York Times ignores Panetta

Whether you call it torture or enhanced integration methods, it's using physical methods to extract information which is not the best method to use. The quality of information extracted in this manner is always questionable. It validates the enemies propaganda and makes martyrs of the prisoners. Once physical methods are used to extract information, court conviction becomes much more difficult.

 

[Wicked Jester]

What you wrote is a total mishmash of crap -essentially comparing apples with oranges. If you call waterboarding "torture" right off the bat, you get to totally avoid the real argument about whether waterboarding is or is not "torture" in the first place, allowing the debate to immediately move to a different level and leading people to view waterboarding in the same light as Spanish Inquisition stuff of stuffing a person in the Iron Maiden or putting them on the rack in order to force them to confess to some plot against the King or something. And that makes that a false argument and even a straw man argument where you first propose something that isn't being argued at all, knock it down -and pretend it somehow proves a totally different argument! Bullshit.

But see how quickly you insist on changing the entire discussion -labeling waterboarding "torture" as if that ends the debate and moving straight into claims that it can't possibly be an effective tool no matter how it is used! REALLY? If its TORTURE -then why the fuck was it being done to OUR Navy Seals as part of their training? Why was it being used in other military branches as part of THEIR training as well? Its either torture or it isn't -why its being done doesn't make it torture!

And we aren't talking about using it to extract a confession of any kind -but for the purpose of gaining important information. The claims that waterboarding has provided NO worthwhile or important information is just a flat out LIE and I don't care who the hell you want to quote insisting it has not because they lack the authority of those who claim it has.

The CIA insists TO THIS DAY -and changing Presidents and Directors hasn't changed their claims - that waterboarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed allowed them to prevent a 9/11 style attack that was already being staged for Los Angeles, giving them the critical information that allowed them identify, find and take out an entire terror cell assigned to carry out the attack. Information they knew NOTHING about prior to waterboarding him. And thereby saving hundreds, if not thousands of lives. And let's get real -there is no way we as private citizens are going to be privy to all the information that was gained and will only hear about any information they believe will not increase the risk to anyone else, will not sacrifice ongoing investigations or sacrifice any methods of intelligence collection. In other words -we won't hear about most of it. Everyone you quote insisting how "torture" doesn't work and has provided no actionable intelligence are either 1. political hacks who would rather sacrifice the truth than their political ideology; 2. completely ignorant and didn't bother to do the research before shooting off their mouth to realize they actually have NOTHING to really back up their UNINFORMED OPINION; or 3. flat out liars.

Its easy to sit back from the comfort of your own living room smugly insisting waterboarding hasn't once provided any worthwhile intelligence, much less actually saved lives when it isn't YOUR life that was saved or that of someone you love! But it is a FACT waterboarding Khalid Sheik Muhammed prevented another terrorist attack that was to take place in Los Angeles. Now maybe smugly claiming that's not true when you aren't in the loop and need to ignore those who actually are who insist otherwise provides you with some kind of weird comfort -but it is a dishonest one. You do it because you NEED it to be true in order to conform with your own world view and you very much need to deny REALITY.

This first article points out that waterboarding used to be a routine part of Navy SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) training but they have stopped using it. NOT because of any risk of possibly causing injury -but because it is so universally effective in extracting information with near 100% of all Navy trainees revealing whatever information they had. It was the training to try and resist waterboarding that was ineffective -NOT the waterboarding itself! (In previous post I seriously underestimated the number of US soldiers who were waterboarded as part of their training -it turns out it is a significantly higher number.) You quote people about how it USUALLY isn't necessary to use harsh techniques while ignoring the fact our military never routinely used them and had strict requirements about when it would even become a legitimate tool! Obviously since only THREE terrorists were ever waterboarded, we are NOT talking about "usually", are we? The JUDICIOUS use of enhanced interrogations is in fact VERY EFFECTIVE!

Once AGAIN -if a specific act is "torture" then it is always torture no matter who is doing it or why they are doing it. It is the ACT itself that makes it torture. Not WHY it is being done. Just like it is the act that makes a murder "murder" -not who did it or who the murdered person was! Get your mind around this one, ok? If waterboarding is "torture" then it means it is ALWAYS torture no matter who it is being done to! That would mean scores of our soldiers were being tortured. It means we allowed a foreign military to torture our soldiers and it means that several different military branches tortured other US soldiers as a matter of ROUTINE training. Many, many more AMERICANS were waterboarded than the three terrorists who were waterboarded.

Oh wait -you must mean its only torture if its done to a would-be mass murdering terrorist but not torture when its done to the person charged with trying to prevent him from committing that mass murder? You can't have it both ways -if its torturing a terrorist, then its torturing OUR soldiers too. But you aren't arguing that scores of US soldiers were "tortured" by having to endure waterboarding themselves though -you aren't interested in the fact the Navy stopped trying to train people to resist waterboarding because waterboarding was nearly 100% effective in extracting information from them and their training to resist it was ineffective. In fact you aren't the least bit concerned about what our own soldiers routinely endured as part of their training. Nope -your concern and false claims are about three mass murdering terrorists you want to pretend didn't provide anything useful, no information that saved lives -because that lie fits in with your preconceived opinion that cannot be touched by the FACTS. And sorry but one of those FACTS is that two different directors of the CIA claim waterboarding provided a WEALTH of critically important information and saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives. PERIOD. And you know what? I believe THEM before the political hacks who weren't even in that loop.

CIA Waterboarding Produced Intel That Stopped Attack on Los Angeles - HUMAN EVENTS

If you’re determined to believe waterboarding had nothing to do with tracking down Bin Laden, don’t listen to Leon Panetta | The Daily Caller Leon Panetta, Director of the CIA himself admitting to Brian Williams that the intelligence leading to bin Laden came from "enhanced interrogation techniques".

The New York Times ignores Panetta

Whether you call it torture or enhanced integration methods, it's using physical methods to extract information which is not the best method to use. The quality of information extracted in this manner is always questionable. It validates the enemies propaganda and makes martyrs of the prisoners. Once physical methods are used to extract information, court conviction becomes much more difficult.

How does it make "Martyrs" of the prisoners?......They are not being killed, They are being made uncomfortable.

So, under your surmise, blowing a bullet through Bin Ladens head is one in the same, correct?


Liberal logic is a funny thing.

 

[The T]

What you wrote is a total mishmash of crap -essentially comparing apples with oranges. If you call waterboarding "torture" right off the bat, you get to totally avoid the real argument about whether waterboarding is or is not "torture" in the first place, allowing the debate to immediately move to a different level and leading people to view waterboarding in the same light as Spanish Inquisition stuff of stuffing a person in the Iron Maiden or putting them on the rack in order to force them to confess to some plot against the King or something. And that makes that a false argument and even a straw man argument where you first propose something that isn't being argued at all, knock it down -and pretend it somehow proves a totally different argument! Bullshit.

But see how quickly you insist on changing the entire discussion -labeling waterboarding "torture" as if that ends the debate and moving straight into claims that it can't possibly be an effective tool no matter how it is used! REALLY? If its TORTURE -then why the fuck was it being done to OUR Navy Seals as part of their training? Why was it being used in other military branches as part of THEIR training as well? Its either torture or it isn't -why its being done doesn't make it torture!

And we aren't talking about using it to extract a confession of any kind -but for the purpose of gaining important information. The claims that waterboarding has provided NO worthwhile or important information is just a flat out LIE and I don't care who the hell you want to quote insisting it has not because they lack the authority of those who claim it has.

The CIA insists TO THIS DAY -and changing Presidents and Directors hasn't changed their claims - that waterboarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed allowed them to prevent a 9/11 style attack that was already being staged for Los Angeles, giving them the critical information that allowed them identify, find and take out an entire terror cell assigned to carry out the attack. Information they knew NOTHING about prior to waterboarding him. And thereby saving hundreds, if not thousands of lives. And let's get real -there is no way we as private citizens are going to be privy to all the information that was gained and will only hear about any information they believe will not increase the risk to anyone else, will not sacrifice ongoing investigations or sacrifice any methods of intelligence collection. In other words -we won't hear about most of it. Everyone you quote insisting how "torture" doesn't work and has provided no actionable intelligence are either 1. political hacks who would rather sacrifice the truth than their political ideology; 2. completely ignorant and didn't bother to do the research before shooting off their mouth to realize they actually have NOTHING to really back up their UNINFORMED OPINION; or 3. flat out liars.

Its easy to sit back from the comfort of your own living room smugly insisting waterboarding hasn't once provided any worthwhile intelligence, much less actually saved lives when it isn't YOUR life that was saved or that of someone you love! But it is a FACT waterboarding Khalid Sheik Muhammed prevented another terrorist attack that was to take place in Los Angeles. Now maybe smugly claiming that's not true when you aren't in the loop and need to ignore those who actually are who insist otherwise provides you with some kind of weird comfort -but it is a dishonest one. You do it because you NEED it to be true in order to conform with your own world view and you very much need to deny REALITY.

This first article points out that waterboarding used to be a routine part of Navy SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) training but they have stopped using it. NOT because of any risk of possibly causing injury -but because it is so universally effective in extracting information with near 100% of all Navy trainees revealing whatever information they had. It was the training to try and resist waterboarding that was ineffective -NOT the waterboarding itself! (In previous post I seriously underestimated the number of US soldiers who were waterboarded as part of their training -it turns out it is a significantly higher number.) You quote people about how it USUALLY isn't necessary to use harsh techniques while ignoring the fact our military never routinely used them and had strict requirements about when it would even become a legitimate tool! Obviously since only THREE terrorists were ever waterboarded, we are NOT talking about "usually", are we? The JUDICIOUS use of enhanced interrogations is in fact VERY EFFECTIVE!

Once AGAIN -if a specific act is "torture" then it is always torture no matter who is doing it or why they are doing it. It is the ACT itself that makes it torture. Not WHY it is being done. Just like it is the act that makes a murder "murder" -not who did it or who the murdered person was! Get your mind around this one, ok? If waterboarding is "torture" then it means it is ALWAYS torture no matter who it is being done to! That would mean scores of our soldiers were being tortured. It means we allowed a foreign military to torture our soldiers and it means that several different military branches tortured other US soldiers as a matter of ROUTINE training. Many, many more AMERICANS were waterboarded than the three terrorists who were waterboarded.

Oh wait -you must mean its only torture if its done to a would-be mass murdering terrorist but not torture when its done to the person charged with trying to prevent him from committing that mass murder? You can't have it both ways -if its torturing a terrorist, then its torturing OUR soldiers too. But you aren't arguing that scores of US soldiers were "tortured" by having to endure waterboarding themselves though -you aren't interested in the fact the Navy stopped trying to train people to resist waterboarding because waterboarding was nearly 100% effective in extracting information from them and their training to resist it was ineffective. In fact you aren't the least bit concerned about what our own soldiers routinely endured as part of their training. Nope -your concern and false claims are about three mass murdering terrorists you want to pretend didn't provide anything useful, no information that saved lives -because that lie fits in with your preconceived opinion that cannot be touched by the FACTS. And sorry but one of those FACTS is that two different directors of the CIA claim waterboarding provided a WEALTH of critically important information and saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives. PERIOD. And you know what? I believe THEM before the political hacks who weren't even in that loop.

CIA Waterboarding Produced Intel That Stopped Attack on Los Angeles - HUMAN EVENTS

If you’re determined to believe waterboarding had nothing to do with tracking down Bin Laden, don’t listen to Leon Panetta | The Daily Caller Leon Panetta, Director of the CIA himself admitting to Brian Williams that the intelligence leading to bin Laden came from "enhanced interrogation techniques".

The New York Times ignores Panetta

Whether you call it torture or enhanced integration methods, it's using physical methods to extract information which is not the best method to use. The quality of information extracted in this manner is always questionable. It validates the enemies propaganda and makes martyrs of the prisoners. Once physical methods are used to extract information, court conviction becomes much more difficult.

How does it make "Martyrs" of the prisoners?......They are not being killed, They are being made uncomfortable.

So, under your surmise, blowing a bullet through Bin Ladens head is one in the same, correct?


Liberal logic is a funny thing.

Which shows the poster is IGNORANT to the meaning of Martyr...thos in PRISON were just subject to the STUPIDitity rule...they got CAUGHT and didn['t have their skulls air-conditioned.

 

[Vanquish]

More craptastic, JackBauer justice from some of the conservatives in this thread. Gotta love hyper-real situations that substitute doing the right thing with "whatever it takes!!!!"

Yeah, let's not follow the rules "when it really matters" - whatever the fuck that means.

The problem is...even if you say torture isn't "routine practice"...once you start down that slippery slope..there will be more and more and more exceptions.

And you dimwits who make up these scenarios ALWAYS assume that the person being tortured HAS the information or is 100% evil. Wait until your mom or your sister or your puppy is taken and flayed. Then you wont love your "as seen on 24" justice.

 

[Dr.Drock]

I have to believe your title of Dr. is self assigned.

I always wonder why people are so scared to answer that question.


If it works on terror suspects, why wouldn't you want it done to rape or murder suspects?

Wouldn't it be good to waterboard someone to find out where they buried a body?

If they raped a kid?

Give me the argument why it's ok against terrorists and not ok with the others.

because the crime has already happened with rape, and the person is already dead with murder. Torture is about preventing things. these people who are already caught are going to be facing time anyways. Torturing them will produce nothing.

False, you could easily think up an instance where actionable information would be necessary.

A kid is kidnapped, you have one of the suspects with you, he might know where the kid is but isn't revealing the info, should he be waterboarded?

And do you agree with Robert that the ends justifies the means in all cases, and we shouldn't have anything we aren't willing to stoop to?

Pulling out intestines, yanking off fingernails, electric shock, etc, should these be put allowed as well if the suspect isn't giving us info we think he/she has?

 

[bodecea]

What you wrote is a total mishmash of crap -essentially comparing apples with oranges. If you call waterboarding "torture" right off the bat, you get to totally avoid the real argument about whether waterboarding is or is not "torture" in the first place, allowing the debate to immediately move to a different level and leading people to view waterboarding in the same light as Spanish Inquisition stuff of stuffing a person in the Iron Maiden or putting them on the rack in order to force them to confess to some plot against the King or something. And that makes that a false argument and even a straw man argument where you first propose something that isn't being argued at all, knock it down -and pretend it somehow proves a totally different argument! Bullshit.

But see how quickly you insist on changing the entire discussion -labeling waterboarding "torture" as if that ends the debate and moving straight into claims that it can't possibly be an effective tool no matter how it is used! REALLY? If its TORTURE -then why the fuck was it being done to OUR Navy Seals as part of their training? Why was it being used in other military branches as part of THEIR training as well? Its either torture or it isn't -why its being done doesn't make it torture!

And we aren't talking about using it to extract a confession of any kind -but for the purpose of gaining important information. The claims that waterboarding has provided NO worthwhile or important information is just a flat out LIE and I don't care who the hell you want to quote insisting it has not because they lack the authority of those who claim it has.

The CIA insists TO THIS DAY -and changing Presidents and Directors hasn't changed their claims - that waterboarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed allowed them to prevent a 9/11 style attack that was already being staged for Los Angeles, giving them the critical information that allowed them identify, find and take out an entire terror cell assigned to carry out the attack. Information they knew NOTHING about prior to waterboarding him. And thereby saving hundreds, if not thousands of lives. And let's get real -there is no way we as private citizens are going to be privy to all the information that was gained and will only hear about any information they believe will not increase the risk to anyone else, will not sacrifice ongoing investigations or sacrifice any methods of intelligence collection. In other words -we won't hear about most of it. Everyone you quote insisting how "torture" doesn't work and has provided no actionable intelligence are either 1. political hacks who would rather sacrifice the truth than their political ideology; 2. completely ignorant and didn't bother to do the research before shooting off their mouth to realize they actually have NOTHING to really back up their UNINFORMED OPINION; or 3. flat out liars.

Its easy to sit back from the comfort of your own living room smugly insisting waterboarding hasn't once provided any worthwhile intelligence, much less actually saved lives when it isn't YOUR life that was saved or that of someone you love! But it is a FACT waterboarding Khalid Sheik Muhammed prevented another terrorist attack that was to take place in Los Angeles. Now maybe smugly claiming that's not true when you aren't in the loop and need to ignore those who actually are who insist otherwise provides you with some kind of weird comfort -but it is a dishonest one. You do it because you NEED it to be true in order to conform with your own world view and you very much need to deny REALITY.

This first article points out that waterboarding used to be a routine part of Navy SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) training but they have stopped using it. NOT because of any risk of possibly causing injury -but because it is so universally effective in extracting information with near 100% of all Navy trainees revealing whatever information they had. It was the training to try and resist waterboarding that was ineffective -NOT the waterboarding itself! (In previous post I seriously underestimated the number of US soldiers who were waterboarded as part of their training -it turns out it is a significantly higher number.) You quote people about how it USUALLY isn't necessary to use harsh techniques while ignoring the fact our military never routinely used them and had strict requirements about when it would even become a legitimate tool! Obviously since only THREE terrorists were ever waterboarded, we are NOT talking about "usually", are we? The JUDICIOUS use of enhanced interrogations is in fact VERY EFFECTIVE!

Once AGAIN -if a specific act is "torture" then it is always torture no matter who is doing it or why they are doing it. It is the ACT itself that makes it torture. Not WHY it is being done. Just like it is the act that makes a murder "murder" -not who did it or who the murdered person was! Get your mind around this one, ok? If waterboarding is "torture" then it means it is ALWAYS torture no matter who it is being done to! That would mean scores of our soldiers were being tortured. It means we allowed a foreign military to torture our soldiers and it means that several different military branches tortured other US soldiers as a matter of ROUTINE training. Many, many more AMERICANS were waterboarded than the three terrorists who were waterboarded.

Oh wait -you must mean its only torture if its done to a would-be mass murdering terrorist but not torture when its done to the person charged with trying to prevent him from committing that mass murder? You can't have it both ways -if its torturing a terrorist, then its torturing OUR soldiers too. But you aren't arguing that scores of US soldiers were "tortured" by having to endure waterboarding themselves though -you aren't interested in the fact the Navy stopped trying to train people to resist waterboarding because waterboarding was nearly 100% effective in extracting information from them and their training to resist it was ineffective. In fact you aren't the least bit concerned about what our own soldiers routinely endured as part of their training. Nope -your concern and false claims are about three mass murdering terrorists you want to pretend didn't provide anything useful, no information that saved lives -because that lie fits in with your preconceived opinion that cannot be touched by the FACTS. And sorry but one of those FACTS is that two different directors of the CIA claim waterboarding provided a WEALTH of critically important information and saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives. PERIOD. And you know what? I believe THEM before the political hacks who weren't even in that loop.

CIA Waterboarding Produced Intel That Stopped Attack on Los Angeles - HUMAN EVENTS

If you’re determined to believe waterboarding had nothing to do with tracking down Bin Laden, don’t listen to Leon Panetta | The Daily Caller Leon Panetta, Director of the CIA himself admitting to Brian Williams that the intelligence leading to bin Laden came from "enhanced interrogation techniques".

The New York Times ignores Panetta

Whether you call it torture or enhanced integration methods, it's using physical methods to extract information which is not the best method to use. The quality of information extracted in this manner is always questionable. It validates the enemies propaganda and makes martyrs of the prisoners. Once physical methods are used to extract information, court conviction becomes much more difficult.

How does it make "Martyrs" of the prisoners?......They are not being killed, They are being made uncomfortable.So, under your surmise, blowing a bullet through Bin Ladens head is one in the same, correct?


Liberal logic is a funny thing.

They are being made uncomfortable. Gotta love the rephrasing involved with excusing torture.

Reminds me of slavery being referred to as "our peculiar institution".

 

[Dr.Drock]

Whether you call it torture or enhanced integration methods, it's using physical methods to extract information which is not the best method to use. The quality of information extracted in this manner is always questionable. It validates the enemies propaganda and makes martyrs of the prisoners. Once physical methods are used to extract information, court conviction becomes much more difficult.

How does it make "Martyrs" of the prisoners?......They are not being killed, They are being made uncomfortable.So, under your surmise, blowing a bullet through Bin Ladens head is one in the same, correct?


Liberal logic is a funny thing.

They are being made uncomfortable. Gotta love the rephrasing involved with excusing torture.

Reminds me of slavery being referred to as "our peculiar institution".

Yeah lol, "uncomfortable", they equate waterboarding to sitting on a wood chair.