A Conservative's view on waterboarding

[Liability]

This is why the pie in the sky wishful and magical thinking of the liberals is so inappropriate to real-world international relations and national security governance.

The children who ruin -- errr -- run the liberal Democrat Parody (i.e., the ass clowns we now call the President, his Administration's top officials, the Democrat Parody Congressional "leadership" and so forth) want so badly for all the world to love us, that we do stupid which is not in our interest.

We used to be guilty of supporting dictators. Sad but true. And we know folks justifiably hate that. So, wanting to be loved and admired and respected in all the best international cocktail parties, the Ass Clown in Chief actually SUPPORTS the mutants seeking the overthrow of Egypt's Mubarak dictatorship. Fine, except ....

The liberoidal Democrat Parody ass clowns don't stop and think about what comes next. They don't learn from history. Ass clowns will happily accept (and they SEEK) the accolades of the international liberals and socialists for toppling a corrupt dictatorship, but they apparently have shitty memories: they can't recall what happened in Iran when Carter was President.

They can't see that this Arab "spring" is really an ugly uprising of shit like the "Muslim Brotherhood." They shut their juvenile eyes ever so tightly and really really really WISH that things will be better in the morning.

Fucking juvenile ass clowns.

And along similar lines of "thinking," they decline to extract information from some of the al qaeda type pigs via nasty methods like water boarding. Oh heavens. That might be unpleasant. It "demeans" us.

So does the failure to prevent terrorist attacks. But the trade off is the acceptable one to the Ass Clowns of the liberal loopy left.

 

[Ravi]

I don't think people that oppose torture care so much about what the world thinks. We care about what we think of ourselves.

Torture is evil and there is no evidence that it works better or even as well as any other interrogation method.

You want to act like a terrorist? Go right ahead and then take your medicine instead of being a coward and hiding behind the Bush Administration.

 

[NoNukes]

There's really not much difference between a Democrat and John McCain.

I wonder though. Would you folks consider depriving prisoners of television, radio, reading material, and/or any form of recreation to be torture?

Would putting somebody in the 'hole' in the dark for a day or more than a day be torture?

As a discplinary measure, is putting a prisoner on nothing but bread and water and vitamin supplements for a period of time torture?

Is depriving a prisoner of a soft bed or putting him in a tent or requiring him to wear pink underwear and clothing torture?

Is requiring prisoners to do manual labor torture?

Is keeping a prisoner isolated and unable to communicate with other prisoners torture?

Is making any kind of threat that generates fear torture?

Is putting a prisoner in with the general population where he will be subject to sexual assault, beatings, or other mistreatment torture?

Is any form of discomfort or unpleasantry forced on a prisoner torture?

Roll your eyes all you want my friend--(and Valerie IS a friend though we disagree on some key points of this subject)--but I was trying to make a point here.

The length of time anybody is waterboarded the way we have done waterboarding is about 10 to 15 seconds. And then it's over. That is enough to create extreme terror in the heart of the one waterboarded but causes no pain or injury and is always done under close medical supervision to ensure that if there are any physical/mental consequences, those will be addressed immediately.

Now is this something we should be doing to people as a policy? Of course not. And I have repeatedly said so.

But intellectual honesty requires that we at least realize that waterboarding is NOT the same thing as causing extreme pain, injury, maiming, or slowly and painfully killing somebody that would be MY definition of torture. To equate waterboarding with that is to trivialize torture as much as to equate pushing and shoving as no different than assault and battery that causes injury or death.

It's like saying the parent who gives his/her kid a quick disciplinary swat on the rear is as guilty of child abuse as those who burn their kids with cigarettes or break their bones or threaten to do so.

Several of those items on my list can cause extreme discomfort and unpleasantries for prisoners and some are far more dangerous and hazardous to their health which waterboarding the way we have done it is not. Put a prisoner afraid of insects or rodents or afraid of the dark or claustrophobic into small, dark, confinement for a prolonged period and that is far more physically and psychologically damaging than waterboarding would be.

Waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation should not be standard policy for the USA or any decent country. But let's at least be intellectually honest and keep it in it proper perspective.

And let's understand that if it comes to the welfare or comfort of a prisoner who absolutely has information that would allow us to stop the death and maiming of large numbers of innocent people, a different morality kicks in and a different standard may have to apply.

Should the Secret Agent have shot off that toe? That, in a nutshell, is what the intellectually honest will think about.

Saying that John McCain is not much different than a Democrat does not make the issue untrue. He got the head of the CIA to say that the information that led us to finding Bin Laden was not accessed through torture, period.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

"WHEN US Representative Steve King learned that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US troops in Pakistan, he couldn’t resist a little crowing about the efficacy of torture. “Wonder what President Obama thinks of water boarding now?’’ the Iowa Republican tweeted on May 2.

It was an outrageous remark, but King wasn’t going out on a limb. A parade of others, mostly Republicans, have joined him in claiming that the death of bin Laden had vindicated the use of waterboarding — the most notorious of the “enhanced interrogation techniques’’ the Bush administration employed to extract information from senior Al Qaeda detainees....

...I don’t know whether waterboarding was indispensable to rolling up bin Laden; for every interrogation expert who says it was, another expert argues the opposite. But the case against waterboarding never rested primarily on its usefulness. It rested on its wrongfulness. It is wrong when bad guys do it to good guys. It is just as wrong when good guys do it to Al Qaeda....

The killing of bin Laden was gratifying, but it was no vindication of torture. Republicans rightly argue that much credit is owed to George W. Bush, who launched an effective war on terror and pursued it with fierce resolve. But Bush was wrong to permit waterboarding, and wrong to deny that it was torture. I don’t agree with Obama on much, but when it comes to waterboarding, he is right. America will defeat the global jihad, but not by embracing its most inhuman values."

Ends don’t justify the means - The Boston Globe

Jeff Jacoby (columnist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wow a conservative who actually practices the values of a conservative? God the world is ending

Sorry...couldn't resist making the comment that a true conservative would be against torture.

 

[Ravi]

Again, some Secret Service agent in some movie you saw shot off a toe and got the info he needed to save the day.......I'm sure it was very compelling and dramatic and all, yet my opinion of the OP still does not budge. Honest.

You keep saying you don't support it in the least while proceeding to rationalize it in the next breath, so whatever the difference is, only your own intellectual honesty can know for sure...




For the record, my friend, I was rolling my eyes at your list of "unpleasantries"

Yes it was a scene in a movie, but it illustrates the point I am making. The intellectually honest will see that. The ideologically blind cannot see it. And I do believe that is the truth.

You follow my post with a list of incidents far different than waterboarding as it has been used by Americans and probably don't see how much of a non sequitur that is.

Or is your intent to make the reader believe that the non lethal, non injurious, non painful act of waterboarding a person for 10 to 15 seconds is the same thing as the incidents you just posted? You honestly see no difference?

And what is it in the water that liberals drink that makes them unable to focus on the point being made? That standard policy, procedure, mandates, rules that are rigidly enforced under normal circumstances may not apply in a crisis situation in which innocent lives are at stake and time is of the essence.

And the Secret Service Agent and that toe are a perfect illustration of that. And one that so far no leftist on this thread has even been willing to acknowledge, much less think about with any intellectual honesty.

So you want to call me dishonest and still call yourself my friend...?

 

[SuMar]

"WHEN US Representative Steve King learned that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US troops in Pakistan, he couldn’t resist a little crowing about the efficacy of torture. “Wonder what President Obama thinks of water boarding now?’’ the Iowa Republican tweeted on May 2.

It was an outrageous remark, but King wasn’t going out on a limb. A parade of others, mostly Republicans, have joined him in claiming that the death of bin Laden had vindicated the use of waterboarding — the most notorious of the “enhanced interrogation techniques’’ the Bush administration employed to extract information from senior Al Qaeda detainees....

...I don’t know whether waterboarding was indispensable to rolling up bin Laden; for every interrogation expert who says it was, another expert argues the opposite. But the case against waterboarding never rested primarily on its usefulness. It rested on its wrongfulness. It is wrong when bad guys do it to good guys. It is just as wrong when good guys do it to Al Qaeda....

The killing of bin Laden was gratifying, but it was no vindication of torture. Republicans rightly argue that much credit is owed to George W. Bush, who launched an effective war on terror and pursued it with fierce resolve. But Bush was wrong to permit waterboarding, and wrong to deny that it was torture. I don’t agree with Obama on much, but when it comes to waterboarding, he is right. America will defeat the global jihad, but not by embracing its most inhuman values."

Ends don’t justify the means - The Boston Globe

Jeff Jacoby (columnist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not true to conservatives as a whole..

 

[Care4all]

water torture has always been water TORTURE....

water torture is making a suspect, believe they are drowning, believe they will be drowned, they will be killed....

from everything that I have read on it....

 

[Foxfyre]

water torture has always been water TORTURE....

water torture is making a suspect, believe they are drowning, believe they will be drowned, they will be killed....

from everything that I have read on it....

That is true.

But the way we have done it, it is also non lethal, non health threatening, non injurious, and non painful and it lasts from 10 to 15 seconds.

To equate that as no different from torture that is health threatening, maiming, painful, and of long duration up to and including lethal is quite foolish in my opinion.

Again, I do not advocate the use of water boarding or any other enhanced interrogation techniques as policy for the USA. I have said that repeatedly. I think any who use it to find out IF somebody knows something or for their entertainment should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But. . . . in an emergency case in which the lives of many innocent citizens are at stake and those charged to protect those lives know the one in custody has information to stop it . . . . wouldn't you prefer they use water boarding as I described it or other similar enhanced interrogation rather than inflicting injurious or excruciating pain on that person?

Is it beyond the ability of some people to understand that there can and will be times that rules have to be broken or the standard policy cannot be followed in order to protect and save somebody?

Or will ideology continue to override reality and common sense here?

Should the Secret Service agent have shot off that toe? To consider that question really is the crux of the whole thing.

To allow hundreds or thousands of innocent citizens to be killed or maimed rather than consider anything other than a rigid position to me is a very strange morality.

 

[Ravi]

But the way we have done it, it is also non lethal, non health threatening, non injurious, and non painful

Negged for lying.

 

[Foxfyre]

Thank you for the neg Ravi. So charitable of you when you have zero chance of showing that I am lying since I am not. Isn't it fun to have big rep and be a rep bully to those who are honestly attempting to have a real debate on a subject and who are keeping it civil? Oh well. It takes all kinds.

 

[Ravi]

Thank you for the neg Ravi. So charitable of you when you have zero chance of showing that I am lying since I am not. Isn't it fun to have big rep and be a rep bully to those who are honestly attempting to have a real debate on a subject. Oh well. It takes all kinds.

I would have negged you for lying if I had no rep at all.

Your post was a lie. Not to mention stupid. If torture wasn't torturous it wouldn't be used.

 

[Foxfyre]

Thank you for the neg Ravi. So charitable of you when you have zero chance of showing that I am lying since I am not. Isn't it fun to have big rep and be a rep bully to those who are honestly attempting to have a real debate on a subject. Oh well. It takes all kinds.

I would have negged you for lying if I had no rep at all.

Your post was a lie. Not to mention stupid. If torture wasn't torturous it wouldn't be used.

I didn't say that it wasn't tortuous. It is and that is why it IS used. And that is also why I oppose it as a matter of policy. But it also is of fairly short duration, is non lethal, non injurious, and non painful. And from a moral standpoint, I see it as a far better choice if absolutely necessary to save innocent life than would be doing something that is injurious, painful, and possibly lethal.

But of course like most of our leftwing friends, you do not debate things like that do you. You just neg rep. And that's pretty pitiful actually.

 

[Ravi]

Thank you for the neg Ravi. So charitable of you when you have zero chance of showing that I am lying since I am not. Isn't it fun to have big rep and be a rep bully to those who are honestly attempting to have a real debate on a subject. Oh well. It takes all kinds.

I would have negged you for lying if I had no rep at all.

Your post was a lie. Not to mention stupid. If torture wasn't torturous it wouldn't be used.

I didn't say that it wasn't tortuous. It is and that is why it IS used. And that is also why I oppose it as a matter of policy. But it also is of fairly short duration, is non lethal, non injurious, and non painful. And from a moral standpoint, I see it as a far better choice if absolutely necessary to save innocent life than would be doing something that is injurious, painful, and possibly lethal.

But of course like most of our leftwing friends, you do not debate things like that do you. You just neg rep. And that's pretty pitiful actually.

I negged you for lying and I'd do it again if I could since you just lied yet again.

There is no debating with you. You are married to your ideas to the point that you will even call people you pretend are your friends "liar" as you did to Valerie above.

 

[Foxfyre]

I would have negged you for lying if I had no rep at all.

Your post was a lie. Not to mention stupid. If torture wasn't torturous it wouldn't be used.

I didn't say that it wasn't tortuous. It is and that is why it IS used. And that is also why I oppose it as a matter of policy. But it also is of fairly short duration, is non lethal, non injurious, and non painful. And from a moral standpoint, I see it as a far better choice if absolutely necessary to save innocent life than would be doing something that is injurious, painful, and possibly lethal.

But of course like most of our leftwing friends, you do not debate things like that do you. You just neg rep. And that's pretty pitiful actually.

I negged you for lying and I'd do it again if I could since you just lied yet again.

There is no debating with you. You are married to your ideas to the point that you will even call people you pretend are your friends "liar" as you did to Valerie above.

Well since you've never debated me, that's an interesting observation. I consider Valerie a friend. I will let her speak for herself whether she considers me a friend. And I have called no one a liar.

But do have a nice day Ravi. I'm sure you are a perfectly lovely person.

 

[elvis]

Thank you for the neg Ravi. So charitable of you when you have zero chance of showing that I am lying since I am not. Isn't it fun to have big rep and be a rep bully to those who are honestly attempting to have a real debate on a subject and who are keeping it civil? Oh well. It takes all kinds.

whining about neg rep? seriously? Oh and I'm still waiting for your hero Hannity to be waterboarded.

 

[Dr.Drock]

Thank you for the neg Ravi. So charitable of you when you have zero chance of showing that I am lying since I am not. Isn't it fun to have big rep and be a rep bully to those who are honestly attempting to have a real debate on a subject. Oh well. It takes all kinds.

I would have negged you for lying if I had no rep at all.

Your post was a lie. Not to mention stupid. If torture wasn't torturous it wouldn't be used.

Ravi I'm on your side in terms of the waterboard debate, but negging Fox was stupid.

Disagreeing with you isn't lying, it's a difference of opinion.

 

[elvis]

I didn't say that it wasn't tortuous. It is and that is why it IS used. And that is also why I oppose it as a matter of policy. But it also is of fairly short duration, is non lethal, non injurious, and non painful. And from a moral standpoint, I see it as a far better choice if absolutely necessary to save innocent life than would be doing something that is injurious, painful, and possibly lethal.

But of course like most of our leftwing friends, you do not debate things like that do you. You just neg rep. And that's pretty pitiful actually.

I negged you for lying and I'd do it again if I could since you just lied yet again.

There is no debating with you. You are married to your ideas to the point that you will even call people you pretend are your friends "liar" as you did to Valerie above.

Well since you've never debated me, that's an interesting observation. I consider Valerie a friend. I will let her speak for herself whether she considers me a friend. And I have called no one a liar.

But do have a nice day Ravi. I'm sure you are a perfectly lovely person.

Yes you did.
"If you're honest you will see that"
is logically equivalent to
"if you don't see that, you're not honest."
you're on the hook here. and you're still whining.

 

[Valerie]

Should the Secret Service agent have shot off that toe? To consider that question really is the crux of the whole thing.

No, it is not. The scenario you continue to cite is a made up scene in a movie drama.

Yes, it may have illustrated that sometimes a brutal situation provokes a brutal response even from one of the "good guys", and hey, who doesn't love a happy ending...

I never saw the movie, but the brutal response of that Secret Service agent was not acting in the role of interrogating a prisoner of war or enemy combatant...

What any individual may be capable of inflicting upon someone who is threatening a loved one or threatening an innocent child, does not at all speak to the rules of war.

Again, it's a movie... When shooting off the toe of a brutal bad guy, the real life happy ending is not a guarantee... In fact you could literally be shooting in the foot your chances of ever saving anybody...


And Foxfyre, this is not a debate it is a discussion. I stated my opinion of the OP and then I demonstrated the basis of my opinion. You stated your opinion and the basis of your opinion is this movie and if others can not see it they are being intellectually dishonest. As I said, fine if you want to disagree, just try not to take it all so personally and insult everyone's intelligence...

 

[Foxfyre]

Thank you for the neg Ravi. So charitable of you when you have zero chance of showing that I am lying since I am not. Isn't it fun to have big rep and be a rep bully to those who are honestly attempting to have a real debate on a subject and who are keeping it civil? Oh well. It takes all kinds.

whining about neg rep? seriously? Oh and I'm still waiting for your hero Hannity to be waterboarded.

? When have I ever suggested Hannity is a hero? And really what does that have to do with the debate on waterboarding? You of all people I thought could see that there are two sides of a debate and both should be heard?

And you think I am whining about neg rep here? Boy, you sure have a broad definition for whining.

But oh well. As I told Ravi, it takes all kinds.

 

[elvis]

Thank you for the neg Ravi. So charitable of you when you have zero chance of showing that I am lying since I am not. Isn't it fun to have big rep and be a rep bully to those who are honestly attempting to have a real debate on a subject. Oh well. It takes all kinds.

I would have negged you for lying if I had no rep at all.

Your post was a lie. Not to mention stupid. If torture wasn't torturous it wouldn't be used.

Ravi I'm on your side in terms of the waterboard debate, but negging Fox was stupid.

Disagreeing with you isn't lying, it's a difference of opinion.

she called valerie a liar.