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what?
its a request for inquest into torture methods, and ironically, the only things they didnt block out were ‘these enhanced techniques include:’ and ‘water board’. i can imagine them beating some poor POW with a pool floatie, then making him eat it.
That’s why the powers that be gave us the List of Torture Methods and Devices on Wikipedia…including Waterboard. It’s not…by any means…the worst.
I say we behead all those jizzlamic fucks.
What we are calling torture and what is really torture is two different things. Drilling someone’s kneecap off with a wood drill bit is torture, letting a terrorist thug think he is going to drown (or not letting him sleep) is not.
Hey gor, you have a girlfriend, wife or daughter? How about we waterboard her and you can explain how its not really torture.
Waterboarding, according to Wikipedia: “consists of immobilizing a person on their back with the head inclined downwardâ€â€known as the Trendelenburg positionâ€â€and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning and is made to believe that death is imminent.”
According to Wiktionary, torture’s definition is: “To intentionally force someone to experience agony.”
Agony, to further clarify, denotes: “- Pain so extreme as to cause writhing or contortions of the body” or “- The last struggle of life; death struggle.”
The stated point of water-boarding is to cause exactly this kind of “death struggle”, also called agony. It is to simulate drowning in order to convince the victim that they are dying.
Also, it is a fallacy to believe that torture is an effective means of interrogation. The real professionals (the men and women who TEACH interrogation at westpoint, et al) tried to get the makers of “24” to stop depicting Jack Bauer’s torture scenes as effective, because it can cause misconceptions in our soldiers as well as in the American psyche. Again, according to the people who do this for a living, torture is simply not a good way to obtain information that is reliable.
Or are you just wanting to torture people for fun and/or punishment? That is sadism. Last time I read the constitution, that was not an ideal upon which our country was founded. In fact, the constitution states that we have freedom from “cruel and unusual punishment”, not only for citizens but all persons. If you are unclear on this point, I suggest you go have a look at the document itself. You may find it does not say what you think it says.
Wowwowowowowowowowowow st_judas.
The Constitution states that WE have freedom from “cruel and unusual punishment”, not those stupid, pig fucking, self-exploding Islamic fuckheads. I’m sick of people feeling bad for and tolerating these assholes (this goes for all religions). Since when the hell is interrogation NOT effective? It’s basically all that works. God, you make me sick, you stupid, bleeding-heart, liberal hippie. Normal liberals are fine, but when you turn into a gigantic vagina like st_judas, it REALLY pisses me off.
I have to admit that my last point (the constitution’s applicability to non-citizens) is the frequent subject of debate. The 14th Amendment is interpreted by some to limit the scope of the intended protections, though it seems to me that it only limits jurisdiction of the federal government, not other freedoms guaranteed therein.
“Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”
You know what that is from Exacerbate?
The Declaration of Independence. Right there in the U.S.’s birth certificate it says that all men are created equal. Where I was born makes no difference according to this. But then again what did these guys know, right?
Oh, and torture works all the time. You can get the guy to say whatever you want him to say. Hell, they will admit to being from Alpha – frickin – Centauri if it means the pain and agony will stop. If you want the truth, well, you really don’t want it do you? Because you know all the answers.
There is a bomb in a building with 300 people in it. Only one terrorist knows the location and means of disarming it. As an agent, you’ve repeatedly asked nicely and received so far only a laugh in your face.
What do you do hotshot? What do you do?
For those that are so against torturing another human being, either come up with a solution that will produce results, or just admit that allowing people to die so you won’t have to “lower yourself to their level” is just a bit to self righteous.
Reboot are you truly a dumbass?
As a person who went through SERE school I can tell you water-boarding is scary, but not that bad, and if my girfriend/wife/daughter was caught planting bombs in supermarkets and scare her would save lives by disclosing other bombs, than I would understand.
@... gor and SuperJay
These situations have never come up. Intelligence and interrogation officers have admitted that they have never faced a ‘ticking timebomb’ experience like the 2 or 3 per 24 espisode.
Now, if there really were a ticking timebomb, I do believe our law enforcement would do whatever it took to get that information, and would probably be granted retroactive immunity (as they should be). Legalizing this for the “just in case we need to use it” will result in us always using it. You will see crack dealers being waterboarded to give up the names of their sources.
Way to resort to ad hominem attacks, Exacerbate. If you’d bothered to actually READ the constitution, you’d know that it doesn’t limit freedom to only ‘mercans like yourself, but rather extends the inherent rights to every human being. If reading the constitution makes me a “liberal hippie”, then I suppose you have me there. If that makes you sick, perhaps you should go have a visit to an authoritarian country where they don’t have such values. I hear Myanmar is lovely this time of year.
@SuperJay: The professional interrogators keep repeating this, but armchair generals refuse to listen. Men who have conducted thousands of interrogations don’t condone the use of torture. Not only because we don’t want our guys tortured, but because it is ineffective. Your false construct straight out of “24” has been disproven time and time again. There is no validity to such a hypothetical set up except in concocted dream-worlds starring Jack Bauer. Situations like that don’t actually exist.
It’s easy for people to throw around phrases like “we’re only lowering ourselves to their level” when they haven’t, in person, had any experience with the sort of detainees in question. While SuperJay’s scenario is, at best, far fetched and extremely Hollywoodesque, he did make somewhat of a good point. Allow me to paint a more realistic scenario.
A successful raid has yielded the capturing a high value target(HVT for short). This man has been confirmed by numerous, human intelligent sources as being a leader of a cell heavily involved with attacks on American soldiers, their allies, and Iraqi civilians. During the raid, numerous documents and objects(explosives, banned weapons, etc) were discovered in his house. All “civil” methods of interrogation have thus far produced no results, and the HVT hasn’t given a shred of useful intelligence. What now?
I’m reminded of an event that happened a few years ago in Iraq. This occurred back when the insurgency was still somewhat “new.” An insurgent had recently been detained/was in the process of being detained(I believe he was on the ground at the time) after being caught placing IEDs in the road. After being asked repeatedly about the location of other bombs, the detainee didn’t respond, and he feigned ignorance of such things. A U.S. soldier fired his rifle at the ground near the detainee’s head, and then began yelling threats at the detainee. The insurgent then confessed the location of another IED emplacement on a nearby road that was part of a bigger ambush set. The IED was discovered and properly disposed of. The U.S. soldier then got into trouble for his actions(I honestly can’t remember if he was relieved or demoted or what).
So, it’s easy to spout phrases like “we’re only lowering ourselves to their level,” when it’s not your life and the lives of others(some of them your closest friends) on the line. I don’t condone torture. I hate it, and it disgusts me. But if the thing standing between you and the preservation of the lives of some of the people closest to you is the “drowning” of somebody who’s already tried killing you all before, I wonder what you would do in that situation? Just a thought.
And let’s not compare our methods to their own. Even the most gruesome interrogation scenarios the U.S. may put its detainees in come nowhere near what they do to our guys. I’m not saying that makes it right, but I am saying comparisons between the two are quite far stretched. I can’t recall the last time a detainee was maimed, stabbed, beaten, and then burned alive as he was dragged through the streets before his body, now in a completely unrecognizable state of charred and disfigured flesh, was hung from a bridge for all to see and cheer at. So, even when you say “we’ve lowered ourselves to their level,” we really haven’t. We’re nowhere near it.
Waterboarding =/= gruesome death that is broadcast on tv and/or uploaded to the Internet.
Yeah, yeah. TL; DR.
OMG! Intelligent discussion in my internets?!
@FMS: I actually took the time to read your entire post, as I care about this issue and I believe the other respondents do as well; yourself included. I don’t have any love for those who would use “terror” to obtain their political objectives. Quite the reverse. I love my country, and for that reason I deeply distrust those in power. I believe it is the duty of a patriot to always question, to hold our government and ourselves to the highest standards possible, and if necessary to use force in defending against our enemies.
So it sounds like what you’re saying is that because others have done worse (and I have no doubt that “they” do), it makes sense for us to go slightly less far? Either way, I am not among those trying to make a moral argument here, but instead I am questioning the efficacy of violent interrogation.
I would like to note that my position on this issue has done a 180 since a year ago, when I used to argue with my wife and others about this. Around that time I heard an interview with a general who teaches interrogation techniques at West Point. He has conducted over twelve thousand interrogations of detainees in military custody. His argument was the one I keep repeating. The “ticking bomb” scenario does not occur with any regularity. It is a contrivance. However, even in that situation, he emphasized that very little reliable information could ever come from a detainee under duress. His statement was that the best way to get information was by building a relationship and gaining trust. The interview convinced me that I had been wrong to believe that torture would lead to useful information.
Your anecdotal example, in this case related second or third-hand, does little to convince me that torture is effective. I will grant that it happened the way you relate it. But for every anecdotal example you can cite, there will be other cases of detainees lying and/or providing false-evidence.
@... FMS
Yeah, a lot of people at home have no idea what kind of scumbags live in Iraq and Afghanistan. We don’t have the resources or training downrange to conduct expensive and intensive investigations for each insurgent we capture. So we usually incarcerate them for a short time before we are forced to turn them loose where they’ll just attack us again.
That sucks that the interrogator got shafted. But that’s a real tough situation. If command doesn’t take action against the soldier, they are saying that they condone that type of interrogation. Since we are already under a fucking microscope because of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay (which, by the way, is the Club Med of prisons), the leadership can’t be put into a situation that looks like it accepts torture as a means of gathering intelligence.
I’m not saying that any of these decisions made by the interrogator or the command are right or wrong (mainly because they’re both), they’re just fucking tough.
this internets are too long
@Tony
Yeah, that’s basically what I’m getting at. These decisions aren’t usually made by just some sadistic psychopath wearing a giant, rubber apron who’s lured some college kids to a butcher shop for humans. People don’t realize how crappy a situation servicemen and women get put into over there.
@Judas
I’m not saying that because they do worse, our own actions are excusable. I’m just trying to give you a different perspective on the situation. I agree that violent interrogation really only goes so far. That much has pretty much been proven. Sometimes, however, it has its own place. And I emphasize *sometimes*.
Btw, Tony, how much longer until you get to leave summer camp?
To hold you over, I’d like for you to picture the most awesome, foamy headed beer you can. In a nice, big, and frosty mug. Mmmm.
I got a couple weeks, tops. Just waiting on our replacements to get here. And I get to go back to Germany, where the beer is not piss water! (most German beer) Seems like I just got here!
You guys are making me thirsty. Mmmm beer.
BTW, Tony and FMS, I appreciate your taking the time to actually respond instead of just hurling insults, invective, and hypotheticals at me. I’d love to hoist a beer with either of you. In the meantime, Tony, I’ll have one or three for you. =)
I hope you all enjoy your government, ‘mericans.
@17
I heard an interview on NPR with a guy that was currently working for the FBI, and had been working in interrogation since the Vietnam war. He said that in all that time, he had NEVER run into the “ticking time bomb” situation, and even if he had, he thought that anyone responsible for this kind of situation would be able to withstand torture for the required time for their plan to go through.
Also, waterboarding isn’t “simulated drowning” it IS drowning, just pulling back at the point that the guy would be killed.
@st_judas your intellegent and on the interents wtf?
@FMS You sir are missing one very important point. You make it sound as if ticking time bomb situations are necessary because evil pieces of shit will always be trying to blow us up. How about we avoid pissing them off to begin with?
I mean the guy you mention in your IED story was probably perfectly normal until an off course JDAM killed his whole family for a pointless war. Now before you say we are giving Iraq freedom how about we look at Afghanistan? One oppressive regime has simply been replaced with war lords who are in some cases worse.
Torture is ineffective and does lower us to the level of people like Nazis. Just because your country didn’t have the foresight to avoid dangerous situations doesn’t mean it can ignore basic human rights. Oh and btw ignoring human rights will eventually leave us as morally corrupt as our supposed enemies no matter how you spin it.
@Tony
“Guantanamo Bay (which, by the way, is the Club Med of prisons)”
ah, yes, I had heard Club Med was moving into the solitary confinement and torture market. I didn’t know they were pissing on religious texts though too.
@Bluepanda
I’m pretty sure you completely misconstrued everything I typed. Did I not admit to torture being largely ineffective?
I’m glad that you know so much about JDAMs and how we just slaughter families wholesale with them, bluepanda. Because, you’re right, every insurgent over there is only fighting us because we’ve killed their family. If you think that your average Iraqi was “normal” before we got there and they’re only like this because of something we’ve done, you’re seriously mistaken.
And if you really think Afghanistan is in better shape now with Karzai in charge than they were when the Taliban was there, you really have no idea what you’re talking about.
Under Taliban rule, for instance, women were not allowed to see male doctors. They were also, however, forbidden from going to school. This left very little, if any at all, medical care available to women in the country. Also, access to food, clean water, and employment opportunities all declined during the rule of the Taliban.
Lol
@FSM I am well aware how women were treated under the Taliban. But you say things are better off under Karzai? In Kabul perhaps… But everywhere else there he means nothing. The rest of the country is controlled by warlords who are in many cases as bad as the Taliban. The added extra is now the people have the added concern of some warlord attacking their village and all the trimmings that come with having a ruling class who puts their own power before the people.
Btw feel free to look into how well civic services are operating there I do believe you’ll find it worse as their leaders also have the added cost and problems assciated with fighting one another. Additionally if their are so many jobs why is the heroin trade getting so massive? Why are children smoking the stuff because its cheaper then medical care?
In Iraq? Exactly why do the people hate you? Why does the average Joe go plant IED’s? You may have freed them from Saddam but freed them to a civil war. You might say we had no choice they were a threat to us… But where are the WMD’s? Why were no ties to terrorists found? The Islamic militants only arrived after americans. When they arrived saying america is evil it made sense to the people as their country had been blown to pieces and abu ghraib. Funny that, torture pissing the people off?
Finally you seem to hold the belief america is doing good and helping these people with wars… Well why didn’t you help Afghanistan after their war with the soviets. The second the soviets withdrew american support was withdrawn. This led to a civil war which eventually allowed the Taliban to take power in turn letting Bin laden set up operations. Wouldn’t a little aid then be are cheaper then a war costing billions a week now? Not to mention the lives cost.
Torture is the easy answer to difficult and dangerous problems. But avoiding the problems in the first place is a much better idea. Sadly wars make powerful people rich and ignorant people who think wars and violent measures like torture are a good idea make allow them to get away with it.
Bluepanda, your ability to completely misinterpret everything I type never ceases to amaze me.
The opium trade has *always* been a massive business in Afghanistan. It’s practically their cash crop. It’s not like America invaded and then all of a sudden they were just like “HEY GUYS, LET’S GROW DRUGS!!!!” Opium has ALWAYS been a very big part of Afghanistan’s people. This isn’t some new fad. The opium trade isn’t just growing because people don’t have other options. It’s their cash crop, and it always has been.
I never said anything about Afghanistan during the war with the Soviet Union. What we did there in using them as a pawn and then abandoning them after the war was wrong. But I guess you wouldn’t know what I think about that stuff, since you apparently just love leaping to conclusions.
And as for warlords ruling different parts of Afghanistan, that’s how it has ALWAYS been there. Even the Taliban didn’t unite Afghanistan. They were under the tribal sort rule even before Alexander The Great conquered them. That’s just how they’ve always existed, and I’m pretty sure nothing will ever change that. It’s not a bad thing, and it’s definitely not nearly as bad a picture as you’re painting.
Also, people seem to forget/be unaware of the fact that that even though Iraq may not have had WMDs, they were still a large, state sponsor of terrorists. I’m not saying what we’ve done there is right or better for them, but at least we gave the Iraqi people a chance at a better life. If they’d rather kill one another than fix their country, that’s their own damn fault.
And you’re calling me ignorant? Coming from the guy, I’m guessing, who has no real life experience at all with any of the stuff we’re discussing, that doesn’t mean a whole lot. I’m glad that you base all of your opinions off specials by Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper. Because, apparently, even though I have hands on, real world experience with these things, you know the subject far better than I ever could because you’ve maybe read a book or watched a hour long special on MSNBC.
A bigger picture is being missed here; Bin laden was paid by the CIA to set up his operations (thru the BCCI and Saudi go-betweens). Also, those “Islamic” militants are only pretending to be Islamic. They are mind-controlled (in the style of a pseudo-religious mk-ultra -like program) disposable killers who get their pins pulled and thrown in whatever direction their nihilist commanders (who are mostly british agents or the puppets of British agents) choose. This whole “war” against terror is a concoction, part of a massive destabilization plan the NWO is orchestrating from BOTH sides to make us hate our fellow man, and fall into such a state of chaos they will be able to take off their cloak and go “look here children, see what a mess you’ve made of the world… We are in absolute charge now, because you cannot control yourselves.”
The chump who is mislead into blowing himself up is no more evil than the chump who is mislead onto a battlefield in the first place. We are all chumps at the disposal of bigger chumps.
None of us are at fault, and at the same time, we are all at fault for letting them manipulate us like this.
Damn, i’m a need a joint or two now to forget this shit
“….destabilization plan the NWO is orchestrating…”
New World Order? Scott Hall and Kevin Nash are behind this all!?!?!? And Hulkamania!?!?!?
I’m not going to talk about this issue, but I’d like to say that I’m completely amazed at this thread. The majority of people can type using capital letters and proper sentence structure. Kudos! I never thought I’d see it on the interweb, especially MCS. My life is complete =D
much agreement, this is an amazingly well spoken debate, kudos to everyone in this, except for exacerbate, you’re an idiot. Behead all those jizzlamic fucks? Wow…
This has always been a difficult one for me, my kneejerk reaction to anything happening in Iran/Iraq is always back and forth. I’m second generation American born Assyrian (Nestoro-chaldean Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Catholic), you can see why Assyrians aren’t very popular in the Mid. East, my family is actually from Iraq and I still have family there. So I know that some of these unfortunate incidents (civ casualties) might have taken another of my direct family that I might’ve never met in any case, and our family left due to MASSIVE mistreatments, but I also don’t really condone things such as “pissing on holy manuscripts”.
You wanna go decide what books are good to read and which ones aren’t, set the wayback machine for ’39, aim for Berlin, you should be happy there.
BluePanda, while I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, you do seem to be jumping to conclusions and putting a serious spindoctoring on everything that FMS says. If ya hate Americans, so be it, hate away, but try to be objective in the argument, that way all of the time spent constructing a well written response doesn’t boil down to, “You’re a big fat doodie head”.
All in all though, much agreement, hurt someone long enough, they’ll tell you exactly what you want them to say, the human survival instinct can override almost anything else inside of your head.
That’s m’2 cents….