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Originally posted by Eric:
Well fuck me, everyone turn out the lights and go home, debate's over cause Hitchens has come down from the mountain and spoken! This guy has always been and always will be a pathetic self-important pig. What, he thinks his little guided torture tour makes him an authority? He asks to participate in this little farce, signs a freakin waiver, gets to decide when it ends, and knows he's in 'friendly' hands who will send him on his merry way after his little ride, and then claims credibility in declaring what anyone over the age of 2 already knows? This whole article is masturbatory.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:

And to be fair, Hitchens, I believe, is well aware of what a really mild hint of the real deal he got out of it.

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
There Are Four Lights........

Good Thing Picard escaped Gitmo




Lets party like its 1939

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Originally posted by Khyron:
So AURaptor, you're saying it's alright if foreign nations torture American spies/POWs? After all, if they don't want to be tortured, they can always just give the interrogators the classified information they want to know.

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This isn't my signature. I have to type this every time I make a post.

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Originally posted by Khyron:
What about spies?

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This isn't my signature. I have to type this every time I make a post.

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Originally posted by Khyron:
lol, good advice!

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This isn't my signature. I have to type this every time I make a post.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
There Are Four Lights........

Good Thing Picard escaped Gitmo




Lets party like its 1939

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Aww....that's cute. You just compared Jean Luc Picard to the blood thirsty Islamo Jihadist who'd just as much like to cut your head off as they would grow a beard.

There are things that go bump in the night. And we are the ones who bump back.



It is not those who use the term "Islamo-Fascism" who are sullying the name of Islam; it is the Islamo-Fascists. - Dennis Prager


" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
You're forgetting 2 very relevant things.

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1. We're dealling w/ very bad men Evil sob's who'll just as soon slash your neck, as well as the one's you love, as they would look at you.

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2. The only purpose we'd implement such tactics would be to get information... information they have that we'd use to keep innocents from getting killed.

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We don't do this as 'punishment' ( and if we do, that should stop immediately ) , but only as a means of getting them to talk. They talk, there's no reason for any harsh treatment.

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So, in conclusion, if it's avoidable, it's not torture. It's up to them.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
And again, you show an astonishing faith in the moral infallibility of our torturers.

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So, in conclusion, if it's avoidable, it's not torture. It's up to them.

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A man who has been waterboarded may well emerge from the experience a bit shaky...

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Originally posted by Geezer:
On this analysis, any call to indict the United States for torture is therefore a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down.

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Originally posted by Geezer:
and is unmarked and undamaged

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Like some of our troops that come back from Iraq with all their limbs and no real outward scars are all 'unmarked and undamaged', right?

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Psychological torture, which is in effect what waterboarding is, is still torture.

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Originally posted by chrisisall:
You made yourself sound like a genuine fool there, please retract it, okay?

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Nodissentingopinionsallowedisall?

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As far as I know, it simulates the experience of drowning. The people aren't actually drowning, but they think they are, so it counts as psychological torture in my book.

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Isn't this the same point Chris was making? The one about the psychological scars soldiers who are otherwise unharmed have? The one to which you replied 'good point'?

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Originally posted by BigDamnNobody:

Nodissentingopinionsallowedisall?

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Originally posted by SignyM:
No, my point was that there are lot of physical processes which leave no visible, physical scars.

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Originally posted by Khyron:
Yeah, Geezer, I agree with you on many things, but not this one. Psychological torture, which is in effect what waterboarding is, is still torture.

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Originally posted by chrisisall:
BDM, you too make yourself sound foolish...

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Christopher Hitchens lets Vanity Fair blow off his legs, kill his entire family, destroy his home; he writes about it

What more can be added to the debate over U.S. preemptive war, and whether killing innocent citizens en masse is a crime against humanity? Try firsthand experience. Writer and war-supporter Christopher Hitchens endured the controversial geopolitical maneuver at the hands of the Vanity Fair writers and editors, who blew his legs off, destroyed his home and then hunted down and killed everyone he loved.
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“I declare Jihad on those Vanity Fair Bastards”

by Christopher Hitchens, August 2008

Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, “killing innocent citizens” was something that evil terrorists did to Americans and Europeans. It was why a War of Civilizations against a lawless enemy who disregarded the Geneva Conventions was necessary. War is never pretty, and innocents will die, get maimed, be destroyed emotionally and eventually seek revenge. It’s a side-effect of a bigger problem. Still, some feel that preemptive war and killing innocents is a crime against humanity, regardless of the cataclysmic threat of Islamic extremism.

Exploring this narrow but deep distinction, on a gorgeous day last May I found myself resting at home, preparing to be surprised by a team of extremely hardened Vanity Fair writers and editors who had confronted their country’s enemies in the pages of their magazine for decades. They were going to show me as nearly as possible what real war might be like.

The first Vanity Fair editor I had approached with the scheme had asked my age on the telephone and when told what it was (I am 59) had laughed out loud and told me to forget it. Being a civilian casualty is for Muslims, not for wheezing, paunchy scribblers.

I woke early and knew at once that I wasn’t going back to any sort of doze or snooze. It started with little introduction. Sitting on the porch of my home, I was grabbed from behind, pulled to my feet, had a black hood pulled over my face. I was then turned around a few times, I presume to assist in disorienting me. Then, using rocket launchers, they blew both my legs clean off at the thigh.

While writhing in considerable agony, some weird music assaulted my ears. The outside world seemed very suddenly very distant indeed. Legs already lost to me, I wasn’t able to flee as a fighter jet flew overhead and bombed my home into non-existence, killing my wife and daughter instantly.

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “helps” defeat the enemy. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning — or, rather, being drowned by pain and a horrifying sense of loss.

I had read stories about Iraqis who, after the loss of everything they held dear, and after being maimed, would quickly recover and support American policies in Iraq. I was already confused and angry, but hell, I thought, no Hitchens is going to do worse than a Muslim.

Well, O.K., I admit now that those stories were likely falsified. Still, as my pain and heartbreak slowly gave way to a blinding rage and with slightly more bravado than was justified, I said I’d like to try it one more time. That was when I was informed that they had already located my other children and ex-wife and killed them, as well as killing several close friends.

I desperately needed a drink. As the Vanity Fair editors dumped Depleted Uranium into my mouth, I applied the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if destroying innocent civilians does not constitute a crime against humanity, then there is no such thing as crimes against humanity.

One used to be told—and surely with truth—that the lethal fanatics of Allah were schooled to die, and instructed to claim that their families had been killed even if they hadn’t. Did we notice what a frontier we had crossed when we admitted and even proclaimed that their stories might in fact be true? I had only a very slight encounter on that frontier, but I still wish that my experience were the only way in which the words “crimes against humanity” and “America” could be mentioned in the same breath. Until then, however, I pledge to dedicate my life to jihad and to kill each and every employee at Vanity Fair, as well as their families.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
...unless it results in severe injury and/or death. Last I checked, psychological torture didn't put your internal organs at risk. Waterboarding does.

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Originally posted by SignyM:
This is a new low for you too, Geezer. How did you manage to rationalize your way into such a pit of manure?

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Originally posted by chrisisall:
You made yourself sound like a genuine fool there, please retract it, okay?

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I don't disagree, but does that disqualify it from being psychological torture? The 'torture' part of it is still the psychological part.

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... some people drown without total immersion or without inhaling very much liquid. Water can be absorbed from the lungs after drowning so the amount found postmortem can vary. The salt content of the water (e.g. lake vs. ocean) does not affect survival.Many factors contribute to a drowning, including pre-existing pathology, age, water (fluid) temperature, and possible intoxication. Asphyxia, cerebral anoxia, or heart failure may be listed on the death certificate. Fluid inhalation or suffocation by water usually results in heavy fluid-filled lungs (pulmonary edema). Alternatively, the lungs may appear relatively “normal,” and it is hypothesized that temporary muscle spasm or obstruction of the larynx by mucous or vomit during submersion can cause “dry drowning.”

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Originally posted by Khyron:
That's not what you think though, is it?

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Originally posted by SignyM:
Khyron, what is is that you are trying to deny by blotting out the obvious and insisting that waterboarding is at most an emotional issue? It is slow, controlled drowning.

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Originally posted by Geezer:
Okay. Did anybody - aside from me - actually read the entire article and/or watch the entire video?

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