bush's new book getting him into trouble (admitting to waterboarding)

[Sallow]

There is a "Golden Rule" of treatment of captives...

"Treat enemy captives as you would expect your captives to be treated"

If the US openly engages in waterboarding, sleep depravation, hypothermia, stress positions and whateer else the Bush Justice Department said we could inflict....we have no moral right to complain when these practices are used on our soldiers

Are we complaining about these issues?

I thought we may be complaining about American prisoners being hung:

William Richard "Rich" Higgins (January 15, 1945 – July 6, 1990) was a United States Marine Corps colonel who was captured in 1988 while serving on a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. He was held hostage, tortured[1] and eventually murdered by his captors.

I'm not sure of your point here..

1. Is it that the US torturing prisoners would prevent this from happening?
2. Is it that we should allow terrorists to set the standard for humane treatment of prisoners? The "They do it, so we should get to do it too" argument

The 2 point has been largely rejected by this country since the revolution.

 

[Samson]

There is a "Golden Rule" of treatment of captives...

"Treat enemy captives as you would expect your captives to be treated"

If the US openly engages in waterboarding, sleep depravation, hypothermia, stress positions and whateer else the Bush Justice Department said we could inflict....we have no moral right to complain when these practices are used on our soldiers

Are we complaining about these issues?

I thought we may be complaining about American prisoners being hung:

William Richard "Rich" Higgins (January 15, 1945 – July 6, 1990) was a United States Marine Corps colonel who was captured in 1988 while serving on a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. He was held hostage, tortured[1] and eventually murdered by his captors.

I'm not sure of your point here..

1. Is it that the US torturing prisoners would prevent this from happening?
2. Is it that we should allow terrorists to set the standard for humane treatment of prisoners? The "They do it, so we should get to do it too" argument

You said, "we have no moral right to complain when these practices are used on our soldiers."

I was just wondering when we had complained about "waterboarding, sleep depravation, hypothermia, stress positions and whateer" being used on US POWS?

In the case of Col. Higgins, for example;

His official status with the United States government was "hostage", not prisoner of war. As such, the government did not insist on treatment consistent with international law

 

[daveman]

You set a very low standard for human rights..anything above summarily shooting is acceptable.

My standard is quite simple......Would we like our captured soldiers treated this way?

Our soldiers are legal combatants. Terrorists are not.

Aside from the fact that many of these "Terrorists" were swept up from their homes, and in many cases, wrongly, in the middle of the night based on information gleened from informants...there have been many legal combatants that were tortured as well. Some to death..

Abed Hamed Mowhoush - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From your link:

Four U.S. servicemen were arrested in October 2004 in connection with the killing.​

If torture in the field were policy, why were they arrested?

 

[daveman]

You set a very low standard for human rights..anything above summarily shooting is acceptable.

My standard is quite simple......Would we like our captured soldiers treated this way?

Our soldiers are legal combatants. Terrorists are not.

Legal status does not matter. It pertains to where we set the bar on humane treatment. If we set the bar as low as you suggest, then we should openly accept that is how we expect our soldiers to be treated when they are captured

Perhaps if we don't shoot at the people shooting at us, they won't shoot at us.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Samson, I am missing your point. Because the enemy use of these awful practices empowers us to us them?

 

[daveman]

Legal status does not matter. It pertains to where we set the bar on humane treatment. If we set the bar as low as you suggest, then we should openly accept that is how we expect our soldiers to be treated when they are captured

Why should we "openly accept" anything?

There is a "Golden Rule" of treatment of captives...

"Treat enemy captives as you would expect your captives to be treated"

If the US openly engages in waterboarding, sleep depravation, hypothermia, stress positions and whateer else the Bush Justice Department said we could inflict....we have no moral right to complain when these practices are used on our soldiers

Do you really think terrorists subscribe to that rule?

 

[rightwinger]

Why should we "openly accept" anything?

There is a "Golden Rule" of treatment of captives...

"Treat enemy captives as you would expect your captives to be treated"

If the US openly engages in waterboarding, sleep depravation, hypothermia, stress positions and whateer else the Bush Justice Department said we could inflict....we have no moral right to complain when these practices are used on our soldiers

Do you really think terrorists subscribe to that rule?

No, but we should

 

[rightwinger]

Are we complaining about these issues?

I thought we may be complaining about American prisoners being hung:

I'm not sure of your point here..

1. Is it that the US torturing prisoners would prevent this from happening?
2. Is it that we should allow terrorists to set the standard for humane treatment of prisoners? The "They do it, so we should get to do it too" argument

You said, "we have no moral right to complain when these practices are used on our soldiers."

I was just wondering when we had complained about "waterboarding, sleep depravation, hypothermia, stress positions and whateer" being used on US POWS?

In the case of Col. Higgins, for example;

His official status with the United States government was "hostage", not prisoner of war. As such, the government did not insist on treatment consistent with international law

After WWII, we prosecuted both Germans and Japanese soldiers for participating in just these practices.

Now, if we were to attempt to prosecute other nations soldiers for engaging in these practices all they have to do is point to the Bush Justice Department memo saying this is acceptable treatment.

By saying these practices are acceptable, we have approved them to be used against our soldiers

 

[daveman]

There is a "Golden Rule" of treatment of captives...

"Treat enemy captives as you would expect your captives to be treated"

If the US openly engages in waterboarding, sleep depravation, hypothermia, stress positions and whateer else the Bush Justice Department said we could inflict....we have no moral right to complain when these practices are used on our soldiers

Do you really think terrorists subscribe to that rule?

No, but we should

So if they don't subscribe to the rule, our behavior isn't going to make any difference, is it?

 

[rightwinger]

Do you really think terrorists subscribe to that rule?

No, but we should

So if they don't subscribe to the rule, our behavior isn't going to make any difference, is it?

They are judged by their behavior....

We are judged by ours

 

[CMike]

No... a civilized society affords even the most heinous criminal basic human rights

The fact we dont summarily shoot them does show we grant them basic human rights. The fact that in order to use coercive interrogation a decison has to be made at the highest levels shows we care about human rights. Giving them anything more than that makes us suckers.

You set a very low standard for human rights..anything above summarily shooting is acceptable.

My standard is quite simple......Would we like our captured soldiers treated this way?

Well...if our "soliders" were planning to target and murder thousands of civilians from another country, and they had the information to stop these attacks, then I would expect that if they were captured that the enemy could use waterboarding to get information to stop these attacks.

 

[CMike]

I'm not sure of your point here..

1. Is it that the US torturing prisoners would prevent this from happening?
2. Is it that we should allow terrorists to set the standard for humane treatment of prisoners? The "They do it, so we should get to do it too" argument

You said, "we have no moral right to complain when these practices are used on our soldiers."

I was just wondering when we had complained about "waterboarding, sleep depravation, hypothermia, stress positions and whateer" being used on US POWS?

In the case of Col. Higgins, for example;

His official status with the United States government was "hostage", not prisoner of war. As such, the government did not insist on treatment consistent with international law

After WWII, we prosecuted both Germans and Japanese soldiers for participating in just these practices.

Now, if we were to attempt to prosecute other nations soldiers for engaging in these practices all they have to do is point to the Bush Justice Department memo saying this is acceptable treatment.

By saying these practices are acceptable, we have approved them to be used against our soldiers

No we didn't.

Your comparisons are completely wrong.

 

[CMike]

What I think would be damning of our government is if the government let thousands of american civilians be murdered because they didn't want to make arch terrorists uncomfortable

 

[CMike]

Also CIA personnel are waterboarded as part of their training, and their waterboarding is far worse than what was done to the 3 arch terrorists.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The fact we dont summarily shoot them does show we grant them basic human rights. The fact that in order to use coercive interrogation a decison has to be made at the highest levels shows we care about human rights. Giving them anything more than that makes us suckers.

You set a very low standard for human rights..anything above summarily shooting is acceptable.

My standard is quite simple......Would we like our captured soldiers treated this way?

Well...if our "soliders" were planning to target and murder thousands of civilians from another country, and they had the information to stop these attacks, then I would expect that if they were captured that the enemy could use waterboarding to get information to stop these attacks.

You are entitled to your opinion, but that does not trump federal law or the UCMJ.

 

[JakeStarkey]

You said, "we have no moral right to complain when these practices are used on our soldiers."

I was just wondering when we had complained about "waterboarding, sleep depravation, hypothermia, stress positions and whateer" being used on US POWS?

In the case of Col. Higgins, for example;

After WWII, we prosecuted both Germans and Japanese soldiers for participating in just these practices.

Now, if we were to attempt to prosecute other nations soldiers for engaging in these practices all they have to do is point to the Bush Justice Department memo saying this is acceptable treatment.

By saying these practices are acceptable, we have approved them to be used against our soldiers

No we didn't.

Your comparisons are completely wrong.

Stop it. You know that we have prosecuted our own and other countries' soldiers for torture. Water boarding is torture. Stop it.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Torture is not equated with lack of comfort. Grow up!

 

[CMike]

You set a very low standard for human rights..anything above summarily shooting is acceptable.

My standard is quite simple......Would we like our captured soldiers treated this way?

Well...if our "soliders" were planning to target and murder thousands of civilians from another country, and they had the information to stop these attacks, then I would expect that if they were captured that the enemy could use waterboarding to get information to stop these attacks.

You are entitled to your opinion, but that does not trump federal law or the UCMJ.

Hello??? We are discussing opinions.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Also CIA personnel are waterboarded as part of their training, and their waterboarding is far worse than what was done to the 3 arch terrorists.

No, it wasn't. Stop this. Quit making stuff up.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Well...if our "soliders" were planning to target and murder thousands of civilians from another country, and they had the information to stop these attacks, then I would expect that if they were captured that the enemy could use waterboarding to get information to stop these attacks.

You are entitled to your opinion, but that does not trump federal law or the UCMJ.

Hello??? We are discussing opinions.

Hello, opinions mean nothing if the law contravenes your wrong opinions.