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Originally posted by chrisisall:

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Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I once chocked on a biscuit. I’m pretty sure that I was inches from death and it was probably luck that the wad of saggy biscuit dislodged before I lost consciousness. That was worse then waterboarding, because I might have actually died.

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Ah ya big baby, I regularly choke near to unconsciousness from swallowin' stuff down the wrong pipe (I must have ADD), it just takes the proper ugchughhhf to dislodge something, and sometimes it takes a moment or two, that's NOTHING like having your lungs rudely introduced to H2O, not even close.

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Originally posted by Fletch2:
there are technologies that can determine if you are lying by measuring the activity and delay in certain parts of the brain.

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Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
That’s not what waterboarding is either.

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Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing a person on their back with the head inclined downward (the Trendelenburg position), and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages.[1] Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning and is made to believe that death is imminent.[2] In contrast to merely submerging the head face-forward, waterboarding almost immediately elicits the gag reflex.[3] Although waterboarding does not always cause lasting physical damage, it carries the risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries (including broken bones) due to struggling against restraints, and even death.[4] The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last for years after the procedure.[5]

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Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:

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Originally posted by rue:
God, you're evil.

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And there we have it. It must be a very simplistic life you lead to ignore anything that might contribute to some degree of understanding beyond your ideology. It’s not enough to disagree with the use of waterboarding on the true merits of what waterboarding, you have to pretend it’s something its not and paint anyone who doesn’t except this one-sided view as stupid or evil. You don’t have any perspective and you don’t want any.

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Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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So, I take it you don't admit the perspective of a Pol Pot torture survivor who says waterboarding is torture ?- Rue

You go educate yourself on who and what Pol Pot was, and then we’ll talk about perspective- Finn

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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So, I take it you don't admit the perspective of a Pol Pot torture survivor who says waterboarding is torture ?- Rue

You go educate yourself on who and what Pol Pot was, and then we’ll talk about perspective- Finn

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My god Finn, have you lost your brain somewhere? Yeah, I think we all know who Pol Pot was, and the Khmer Rouge, and knowing all that only makes Rue's point stronger because even the man who experienced Pol Pot's torture says that waterboarding is torture. And I would say THAT guy has a well-founded perspective... which is a helluva more than I can say for you!

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Let's party like it's 1929.

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Originally posted by rue:
In its humane zeal to protect the world from terrorist killers the US kills by the hundreds of thousands. But it's different b/c the US uses bombs and the terrorists use ...... uh, ............

Yeah, that makes sense.

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Both those killed by terrorist bombs and those killed accidentally by US bombs are the victims of the terrorists

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Originally posted by Fletch2:
Hummm, Can't we just decide not to do stuff like this as a matter of principle? I mean we're smart, we're tech savvy and we're not religious nutballs (well, most of us.) I'm pretty sure we could come up with far more effective techniques than this?

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Originally posted by chrisisall:
Sorry, I understood it to be drowning someone, but not really- I thought water entered the lungs, do I understand incorrectly?

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Storymark wrote:
Friday, May 02, 2008 07:09

You fuckin' rightie wingnuts and your moral relativism make me sick.

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That term is used to describe several interrogation techniques. The victim may be immersed in water, have water forced into the nose and mouth, or have water poured onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed. The media usually characterize the practice as "simulated drowning." That's incorrect. To be effective, waterboarding is real drowning that simulates death. That is, the victim experiences the sensations of drowning: struggle, panic, breath-holding, swallowing, vomiting, taking water into the lungs and, eventually, the same feeling of not being able to breathe that one experiences after being punched in the gut. The main difference is that the drowning process is halted....

The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government -- whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community -- has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it. ... After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.

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Either suck it up and say "Tough times call for even tougher measures" or say we should stop torturing people

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Originally posted by Storymark:
You keep ignoring that our government considered it torture when they were convicting the Japanese for it.

I guess it's just not torture when we do it.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Either suck it up and say "Tough times call for even tougher measures" or say we should stop torturing people, but stop hiding your head up your butt because you can't abide uncomfortable facts.

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Originally posted by canttakesky:

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Either suck it up and say "Tough times call for even tougher measures" or say we should stop torturing people

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You know, I don't agree with Rap on practically anything. But I'll have to say this for him, he is at least honest about what he really stands for.

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Originally posted by citizen:
I, for one, would like to thank American's for their anti-terrorism stance.

For instance if Americans hadn't been financing the IRA for 30 years, us Brits wouldn't have a clue how to deal with Terrorists.

Playing the long game there America, good thinking, I like it.

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Originally posted by chrisisall:
How'd you like to know your son can operate nearly as low as a real terrorist? He'd have some funny stories for the dinner table come the holidays, eh? "Yeah, they taught us that when you see blood being coughed up, you have to stop for a few hours- pass the mashed potatoes, please."

You KILL the bad guys if you have to, you don't swim in the same sewer of depravity that they do.

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Originally posted by Riverlove:

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Originally posted by chrisisall:
How'd you like to know your son can operate nearly as low as a real terrorist? He'd have some funny stories for the dinner table come the holidays, eh? "Yeah, they taught us that when you see blood being coughed up, you have to stop for a few hours- pass the mashed potatoes, please."

You KILL the bad guys if you have to, you don't swim in the same sewer of depravity that they do.

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That's a bunch of bull, and your moral equivalency of the issue puts you in the Rev. Wright category. If some terrorists or Al Qaida was holding hostage someone I loved, or cared about, or liked, or just knew I'd do anything to get them back if we had one of their's to question. And the same goes true if there was information about a threat against my country. Christ, pouring some water on these animals is actually a favor for them in terms of their personal hygiene.

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there are few on this board who recognize the real and actual threat that these Islamo-Jihadist pose

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It's easy to be outraged by the use of torture by the evil monsters in the government, but if you put it on a personal level like Riverlove does it gets easier to see how it might be required in some situations. If the Kirkules family and the Chrisisall family were being held by terrorists and were going to be beheaded in one hour...

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Ah yes, the Jack Bauer scenario. It's so disheartening sometimes to see how many people confuse a frigging TV show with real life!

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One of these days, it might occur to you that you won’t look half a stupid as you do right now if you read what I say and respond to that, instead of responding to some imagined argument.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
RAP

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there are few on this board who recognize the real and actual threat that these Islamo-Jihadist pose

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Which brings me back to... Oh, really?

Think back to May 2001 and be honest: Were you expecting 9-11? Were you expecting a mjaor terrorist attack on American soil? 'Cause if not you were not recognizing the threat of Islamic extremists.

Say, were you for the Carter Admin arming the Taliban with shoulder-fired missiles? At the time, we were all told they were mujahideen which meant- in the American propagandist lexicon- freedom fighters. Did you recognize the danger in that?

I'm gonna make a prior claim to your so-called knowledge, Rap. You obviously feel you're one of the few who "really" knows what's going on. But you mistake panic for understanding, and you also mistake panic for effectiveness. But based on your posts, I peg you as a confused ignorant tool who hasn't a frigging clue about what's going on because you won't look past your comfort zone and THINK about .... well, pretty much anything. So you continue as perhaps the most gullible person on the board.

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It seems to me that the "Jack Bauer scenario" is exactly what we are talking about here. You act as if the use of torture by our government is widespread. The Feds have used waterboarding three times while Amnesty Int. has used it once. This hardly amounts to the indiscriminate use of torture you suggest. When terrorists with info of a future attack are in custody it's always a "Jack Bauer scenario" for someones family, just not yours, because the odds are on your side.

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[But perhaps the Jack Bauer scenario comes up on very rare occasion: Somebody knows something important and in order to prevent an occurrence you have to get the information out of them right away. At that point, use of torture should be authorized by the President - and let the chips fall where they may. As President of the USA, Commander in Chief, and ultimate world diplomat, the responsibility for breaking the Geneva Convention (which we signed and ratified, making it "the law of our land") should fall on his shoulders.

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You clearly forget the REASON why we helped the actual freedom fighters in Afghanistan, don't you

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The Soviet Union's quest for a warm water port, a well as being one step closer to the Mid East oil fields.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
...there are few on this board who recognize the real and actual threat that these Islamo-Jihadist pose and how committed they are to forcing everyone to accept their brand of Islam, or die.

These are very, VERY evil people, and thankfully there are some still left who are willing to do what it takes to keep them at bay.

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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It's easy to be outraged by the use of torture by the evil monsters in the government, but if you put it on a personal level like Riverlove does it gets easier to see how it might be required in some situations. If the Kirkules family and the Chrisisall family were being held by terrorists and were going to be beheaded in one hour...

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Ah yes, the Jack Bauer scenario. It's so disheartening sometimes to see how many people confuse a frigging TV show with real life!

If that were the case then yes, real agents would prolly use torture. But there's no reason to make it "legal" across the board because then it would be applied to all kinds of situations that- amazingly - don't look anything like 24.

Some of you are strict "law and order' types. You believe that law and punishment deters crime, and if laws are removed crime will flourish. If that's the case, then by your own logic making torture "legal" simply allows torture when it's not warranted.

But perhaps the Jack Bauer scenario comes up on very rare occasion: Somebody knows something important and in order to prevent an occurrence you have to get the information out of them right away. At that point, use of torture should be authorized by the President - and let the chips fall where they may. As President of the USA, Commander in Chief, and ultimate world diplomat, the responsibility for breaking the Geneva Convention (which we signed and ratified, making it "the law of our land") should fall on his shoulders.

On a side-note, in the case of violent civilian criminals who generally aren't calculating their actions, laws and punishment aren't a good deterrent. Civilian violent crime is mostly unpremeditated, and consequences aren't part of the equation. OTOH laws on torture are one of the instances where laws WOULD work, because the people who apply torture... people for whom this is "a job"... will think about what happens afterwards.

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Originally posted by rue:
God, you're evil.

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Originally posted by rue:
"That doesn't mean re-defining torture as non-torture, or making torture legal. It means breaking the law and taking the consequences. What the Bush Administration wanted was to have their cake and eat it too."

I thought SignyM's position was clear - torture is against the law and should always be against the law. And a person who takes it uopn themself to break the law - even a president - has to face the consequences - in this case being put on trial for war crimes.

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Originally posted by rue:
"At that point, use of torture should be authorized by the President - and let the chips fall where they may."

AH - I suspect the use of the word 'should' is confusing to you. In the context of the entire argument (context is something I know you have trouble with) it means is this - IF you support the use of torture it needs to be kept consequential for the person who orders it -ie the president.

Is that better ?

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Originally posted by rue:
"neither of you have the intellectual fortitude to face this very serious issue"

So basically, you're so lazy, violent, stupid, or dishonest you say it's either torture, or nothing.

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Originally posted by Kirkules:

That's a bunch of bull, and your moral equivalency of the issue puts you in the Rev. Wright category.

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If the Kirkules family and the Chrisisall family were being held by terrorists and were going to be beheaded in one hour, I would have no problem turning over a terrorist captive to Chrisisall for interrogation.

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Originally posted by rue:
You never asked what I, or SignyM, would do rather than torture. You never considered how torture might be riskier for the country as a general concept in a democracy and as a specific practice which garners enemies.

For you, it's either torture, or nothing.

Got it. Again.

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Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
You however, have no interest in what I consider or what I think.

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Originally posted by rue:
torture doesn't work, harms the US politically across the globe, decreases security, diminishes constitutional protections and democracy, and is never going to add up on a balance sheet (except in the fevered imaginations of "24" writers)

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Originally posted by Righteous9:
They shouldn't be prying the door wide open for easy abuse for anybody who wishes to use the cover of patriotism for something more nefarious.

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