What happened to morality? In my opinion (and you are certainly free to disagree so long as you can back up your assertions with more than rhetoric and name calling)...the question is rather torture of any sort should be condoned. The fact that others may do it to our troops...(and heaven forbid even worse in some cases) is not a justification for us forsaking our morality. In essence you are condoning the very thing you claim to abhor. We have no power over what horrible and evil things our enemies may do, but what we can control is to what standard we hold ourselves. I dont care whether it was 5 minutes or 5 hours my friends..torture was/has/and always will be morally reprehensible. We Americans pride ourselves on our morality and virture but should we so quickly abandon these things when the going gets hard or there is something we want? My answer is no. Liberal/Conservative/Moderate, whatever you decide to describe yourself as..we all know what is right and wrong..that line should not be moved or blurred when it is no longer suits our time frame or interests. I pride myself on being born into a country that I believe can once again be the light of what is good and just in this world. We cannot forsake our virtue in the name of fear of what may come. True strength comes from doing what we know is right even in the face of wrong or evil. Please remember, evil deeds even in the name of the common good are still evil deeds. I welcome your candid and objective feedback. --Swooh
I do not support the use of waterboarding, but I want to raise a point. For those who are ardently against its use, ever, under any circumstances.... Is there another (less barbaric) way that is effective at getting the information from men such as those referenced in the article? I am guessing that detaining them and asking pretty please ain't gonna get it done. My favorite torture tactic is the playing of New Kids on the Block until the enemy surrenders. It worked with Manuel Noriega.
My suspicion is that you'd be shocked if the truth were told about what we did to get info out of POWs in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. The idea that we use the moral high ground and are honorable to a fault, even at war, is a romanticized notion at best.
I don't think most people would be shocked. War sucks and drives good people to do bad things. That's one of the reasons we don't usually enter into them lightly. And while atrocities and torture did happen, I think you might be shocked at how few there were relative to the number of soldiers. Reading the recent reminiscences about the guys who interrogated Nazis after the war was both enlightening and frustrating compared to what is going on today. The big difference between WWII and now is that it was not codified in "law" and openly supported by an administration.
Are you American? Because it's torturing me to read you guys' crazy attack on fellow American posters. Oh... and you misspelled "becuase."
BTW, "poofies", the original question was "is it ok to waterboard American soldiers?" Why don't you ask them yourselves? A friend of mine was a cavalry scout in Desert Storm. He had to undergo waterboarding, along with other interrogation techniques as part of his training. To this day, he sees it as a necessary evil, but one that he doesn't have a problem using. So, to answer the question, American soldiers (at least certain divisions) ARE waterboarded. You people sometimes just argue to provoke and irritate. A+ job on this one.
Please, Fatty. If American soldiers are being subjected to waterboarding as "part of their training," it is a tiny percentage of our military in Iraq, or anywhere else. Miniscule. Surely you can come up with a better argument than this. So you support torture? Impeach Bush.
Wake up! It is so easy to utter platitudes about what we should and should not do in a time of war. As Refman indicated, we'd probably be shocked by what has actually gone on in every one of our conflicts/wars. I'm not a fan of waterboarding, but I do like the result it seems to yield. Got a better truth serum? Use it please. Still, waterboarding is way less egregious than head-sawing. Not even in the same ballpark.
Sadly yes we've committed numerous atrocities ourselves during times of war..however I maintain that this fact in and of itself is not justification for the continued existance of these tactics. People are so willing to through away their morality in times of crisis because the morally upright thing to do is no longer convienant. The counter argument to my position seems to be that "in times of war anything goes". Cicero is famous for saying that in times of war the law falls silent..the question I pose to you is: "Is it right?". These terrorists that we struggle with have twisted and abandoned the core beliefs of what is normally a peace loving religion because these peace loving beliefs do not fall in line with the results they desire..which is the destruction/assimilation of the west. Beware of abandoning your morality too quickly because in the end you may find that you have far more in common with your enemy than you would like to admit. Furthermore, be careful what you so quickly dismiss as a 'platitude' because I speak of morality and virtue. Too often these things have been removed from our society and dubbed "pie in the sky" because the pragmatist and the cynic can find no use for these things. Morality and virtue should never be considered platitudes..instead they should be regarded as the cornerstone of what seperates our people from becoming the very monsters we fight.
Answer my question in post #82 of this thread and we can have an intellectual debate on this one. Until then it is another case of somebody who doesn't have to deal with the reprecussions of not getting the info finding it easy to decry tactics. I welcome alternative ideas so that waterboarding can be banned for good.
I support it as a means to disseminate critical information only as a last resort where timing is critical. As far as miniscule? I'd say doing it to three terrorists over a combined total of 5 minutes is miniscule compared to the amount of our soldiers who do it as part of their training. I will say that if our soldiers can do it, how is it "torture?" BTW, they go through quite a few things as part of their training that I'm quite sure most of y'all would define as torturous. How about having to go into a airtight room full of tear gas, having to take off your gas mask, and sit in there for five minutes? And should you fail, you get to do it again? Sorry, brother, but y'all are way off on this one.
They do it specifically to train in how to resist torture techniques used by brutal, evil, amoral countries. Specific names mentioned during the training program as countries that have used waterboarding include: Nazis, the Japanese, North Korea, Iraq, the Soviet Union, the Khmer Rouge and the North Vietnamese and they talk about the technique violating human rights and the geneva conventions. Sorry, fatty, you are the one who is way off on this one.
Really? Our soldiers do it, yet I'm way off? Please explain. It is an horrific experience, but nothing that damages the human body for more than 5 minutes. How in the world do you think that is considered "torture?" It is a grand irritant. And a good one. But the fact that it isn't turning your body permanently disabled likens it to "pops" I got back in grade school. Give it ten years. I'm quite certain people like you will think I was "tortured" too. Unbelievable. l
Our soldiers do it so that they can have experience with torture. After WWII, the US successfully prosecuted Japanese as war criminals for using waterboarding. They called it torture when the Japanese did it 50 years ago, and there was no American who called it anything but torture then. Now that some people think it is useful, we equivicate and describe it as something else. Nice morals.
Jorge go POOF! I'm glad Jorge isn't given access to top secret information. You lock him in a room and ask him a direct question over and over again and he would probably define that as torture.