[quote]Moriarty wrote:
entheogens wrote:
Christopher Hitchens, one of the strongest supporters of American intervention in Iraq, agrees to undergo “waterboarding” and reports on it. Check out this video, which includes the actual waterboarding:
The experience was so torturous that after suffering through it he asked to “try it one more time” because he wanted to “improve his time” holding out.
Sounds awful.[/quote]
Yeah its all a game so long as you know they’ll stop when you ask.
Don’t try to use that as reason to support waterboarding or any other form of torture.
entheogens wrote:
Christopher Hitchens, one of the strongest supporters of American intervention in Iraq, agrees to undergo “waterboarding” and reports on it. Check out this video, which includes the actual waterboarding:
Moriarty wrote:
The experience was so torturous that after suffering through it he asked to “try it one more time” because he wanted to “improve his time” holding out.
Sounds awful.
No doubt. I think the fact people are volunteering to undergo it at all speaks volumes here. I mean, no one is volunteering to get his toenails pulled out, or beaten with a baseball bat.[/quote]
Ok. How about we get together, I’ll volunteer you, and I’ll be the one who decides when it stops.
See, what you guys are overlooking is the most crucial element: people are volunteering so long as they have the control to stop it when they want. At that point, its no longer torture.
Then again, if you cant see that in the first place…
See, what you guys are overlooking is the most crucial element: people are volunteering so long as they have the control to stop it when they want. At that point, its no longer torture.
Then again, if you cant see that in the first place…[/quote]
So our military, who are all volunteers and who go through waterboarding as training, are all only OK with their training as long as they get to control when it stops?
See, what you guys are overlooking is the most crucial element: people are volunteering so long as they have the control to stop it when they want. At that point, its no longer torture.
Then again, if you cant see that in the first place…
So our military, who are all volunteers and who go through waterboarding as training, are all only OK with their training as long as they get to control when it stops?[/quote]
Is there a safe word used during training? Are the soldiers aware that it is merely a training exercise, that the person doing it will have reasonable concern for their wellbeing (read: will not up and decide to kill them), or that the person doing it is not looking to illicit any information from them?
All I’m saying is, lets put you in that situation, I’ll decide when you’re allowed to be free. I have little doubt, after 24 hours or so, you’ll be ready to “admit” to being personally responsible for 9/11.
Torture is a way of creating evidence, more often than not unreliably.
See, what you guys are overlooking is the most crucial element: people are volunteering so long as they have the control to stop it when they want. At that point, its no longer torture.
Then again, if you cant see that in the first place…
So our military, who are all volunteers and who go through waterboarding as training, are all only OK with their training as long as they get to control when it stops?
Is there a safe word used during training? Are the soldiers aware that it is merely a training exercise, that the person doing it will have reasonable concern for their wellbeing (read: will not up and decide to kill them), or that the person doing it is not looking to illicit any information from them?
[/quote]
They beat the shit out of our soldiers that go through that training. What they get is much worse than what the three AQ assholes got.
Who did we set free because they admitted to being responsible for 9/11? Why don’t you stick to reality?
A grand total of three AQ assholes were waterboarded.
[quote]
Torture is a way of creating evidence, more often than not unreliably.[/quote]
Waterboarding is a way to break someone’s silence. It is nothing less and nothing more. Terrorists often lie when interrogated. Everyone knows this. You appear to not really have any points but you just want to rant.
Why do you refer to it as torture? It is waterboarding. AQ tortures with power tools. We do not do anything remotely similar. Your use of that word is hateful and wrong.
[quote]entheogens wrote:
lixy wrote:
entheogens wrote:
Christopher Hitchens, one of the strongest supporters of American intervention in Iraq,
Intervention?
What is this? Tasteless euphemism?
No. I am totally against the Iraq war, and have been since the beginning. There are any number of words I could have used here…intervention is one. Why? [/quote]
It makes it sound benign, which doesn’t do anyone any favors.
It’s like calling the French occupation of Morocco a “protectorate” or the Holocaust “population homogeneity planning”.
And don’t get me started on the people who speak of “liberation”…
[quote]lixy wrote:
entheogens wrote:
lixy wrote:
entheogens wrote:
Christopher Hitchens, one of the strongest supporters of American intervention in Iraq,
Intervention?
What is this? Tasteless euphemism?
No. I am totally against the Iraq war, and have been since the beginning. There are any number of words I could have used here…intervention is one. Why?
It makes it sound benign, which doesn’t do anyone any favors.
It’s like calling the French occupation of Morocco a “protectorate” or the Holocaust “population homogeneity planning”.
And don’t get me started on the people who speak of “liberation”…[/quote]
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
See, what you guys are overlooking is the most crucial element: people are volunteering so long as they have the control to stop it when they want. At that point, its no longer torture.
[/quote]
I was actually on the fence about waterboarding, but it seemed like torture to me. Hitchens’ article and your post is actually making me lean toward the it’s NOT torture camp though.
My understanding is that our guys that undergo waterboarding as training (both troops and the people that administer it) do NOT get to control when it stops. I may be wrong but that is my understanding
But the larger point you’re making is that this interrogation technique is torture solely because it is really, really scary. If by removing the scariness factor the physical procedure is “no longer torture” as you say, then it was never torture. Your argument has convinced me it is not torture.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Are the soldiers aware that it is merely a training exercise, that the person doing it will have reasonable concern for their wellbeing (read: will not up and decide to kill them), or that the person doing it is not looking to illicit any information from them?
[/quote]
This doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s torture only because the subjects don’t know if they’re going to be hurt or not? Because they don’t know if the people administering the waterboarding have their well-being in mind? That’s going to be true of any captive scenario.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
All I’m saying is, lets put you in that situation, I’ll decide when you’re allowed to be free.
[/quote]
Sounds like any scenario where I am your captive. Not knowing if I am going to be freed and not knowing if my captors have my well-being in mind is true of ANY scenario where I am being held captive.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
I have little doubt, after 24 hours or so, you’ll be ready to “admit” to being personally responsible for 9/11.
Torture is a way of creating evidence, more often than not unreliably.[/quote]
Sounds like you’re imagining a “24” world where the goal of interrogating is to get a person to say: “Alright, I give up! The bomb is hidden at XXXX”. Interrogation techniques get people to talk, period. Once someone is talking you will almost always gain information of value, even if they lie. When you match what someone says against what other people have said and known intelligence from the ground even lies can be informative. It’s just like talking to a cop. It would be great for them if you said “Yes I killed her!”, but they don’t expect that. What they’re hoping to get is you saying “I was in the park at noon” when they know you weren’t there, or when another suspect said they saw you elsewhere. Some intelligence has been gained, even by you lying. That intelligence can be used to probe deeper.
3 of Al Qaeda senior operatives were waterboarded, for minutes (if not seconds). Hitchens wanted to try it again to see if he could match their time under water.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Is there a safe word used during training? Are the soldiers aware that it is merely a training exercise, that the person doing it will have reasonable concern for their wellbeing (read: will not up and decide to kill them), or that the person doing it is not looking to illicit any information from them?
They beat the shit out of our soldiers that go through that training. What they get is much worse than what the three AQ assholes got.
[/quote]
I disagree. Having someone you can reasonably trust not to want to seriously injure you “beat the shit out of you” and having your life held in the hands of someone who most probably hates you and wants you to die is a very, very different situation.
Thats three too many. And my point was that being tortured enough will make anybody confess to anything – I’ll extend the offer to you: let me waterboard you and see if, after a few days, I dont get a taped confession that you’re a homosexual, you are part of the illuminati, you don’t want to get “too big”, and you hate black people.
So they’re just more likely to lie and say something to stop the waterboarding - your point seems to be that they will lie either way. If thats the case, whats the point of the waterboarding again?
[quote]
Why do you refer to it as torture? It is waterboarding. AQ tortures with power tools. We do not do anything remotely similar. Your use of that word is hateful and wrong.[/quote]
“Waterboarding is a form of torture”
“As the prisoner gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive, with all of the physiologic and psychological responses expected, including an intense stress response, manifested by tachycardia (rapid heart beat) and gasping for breath. There is a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from inhalation of water. Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD.”
"The U.S. State Department has recognized that other techniques that involve submersion of the head of the subject during interrogation would qualify as torture.[40]
The United Nations’ Report of the Committee Against Torture: Thirty-fifth Session of November 2006, stated that state parties should rescind any interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, that constitutes torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment"
“However, the United States has a historical record of regarding waterboarding as a crime, and has prosecuted individuals for the use of the practice in the past. In 1947, the United States prosecuted a Japanese military officer, Yukio Asano, for carrying out various acts of torture including kicking, clubbing, burning with cigarettes and using a form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian during World War II…The charges of Violation of the Laws and Customs of War against Asano also included “beating using hands, fists, club; kicking; burning using cigarettes; strapping on a stretcher head downward.””
[quote]Moriarty wrote:
But the larger point you’re making is that this interrogation technique is torture solely because it is really, really scary. If by removing the scariness factor the physical procedure is “no longer torture” as you say, then it was never torture. Your argument has convinced me it is not torture.
[/quote]
I’m not sure I follow here… Yes, my point is that what makes it torture are the psychological effects that go along with the physical effects. That, because its scary, the physical effects get worse (much harder to stay calm/not inhale water).
To make an analogy, rape is particularly immoral, not just because of the physical effects, but mostly the psychological ones. Now, if two consenting adults are involved in a rape fantasy (or even just rough sex that could injure one or both of them to the same extent a rape could), its the same distinction: the psychological effects.
So what you’re saying sounds like “If some people get off on acting out rape fantasies, and rape is only bad because its really scary, then rape is ok.” I just dont think you can judge it based solely on the physical procedure.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
I’d rather talk about the history of the Ottoman protectorate of the Maghreb and Muslim razzias and slave trafficking of Europeans. [/quote]
Then you could talk about the Crusades.
Seriously, why don’t you just start a thread about Islam?
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Moriarty wrote:
But the larger point you’re making is that this interrogation technique is torture solely because it is really, really scary. If by removing the scariness factor the physical procedure is “no longer torture” as you say, then it was never torture. Your argument has convinced me it is not torture.
I’m not sure I follow here… Yes, my point is that what makes it torture are the psychological effects that go along with the physical effects. That, because its scary, the physical effects get worse (much harder to stay calm/not inhale water).
To make an analogy, rape is particularly immoral, not just because of the physical effects, but mostly the psychological ones. Now, if two consenting adults are involved in a rape fantasy (or even just rough sex that could injure one or both of them to the same extent a rape could), its the same distinction: the psychological effects.
So what you’re saying sounds like “If some people get off on acting out rape fantasies, and rape is only bad because its really scary, then rape is ok.” I just dont think you can judge it based solely on the physical procedure.[/quote]
I think you’ve presented a false analogy here, but I can easily enough re-work it into a proper analogy that I see your point.
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
And my point was that being tortured enough will make anybody confess to anything – I’ll extend the offer to you: let me waterboard you and see if, after a few days, I dont get a taped confession that you’re a homosexual, you are part of the illuminati, you don’t want to get “too big”, and you hate black people.
[/quote]
Again, these interrogations are not about confessions. If these interrogations were about confessions, perhaps you would be correct, but they aren’t. They are about gathering intelligence, and waterboarding absolutely works for gathering intelligence when applied to the right people by trained individuals. In the cases that we’ve used this technique we’ve applied to the right people (senior members of Al Qaeda with intimate knowledge of their command structure) and gotten actionable intelligence.
This is not an episode of 24. We are not looking for “Yes I am responsible for 9/11” answers. Even if someone gave nothing but lies, that could be used in conjunction with what others have told you and with what you know to be true on the ground to gain intelligence. But 99% of people will give up something true under extreme duress.
If what someone gives you is only 5% truth in an interrogation, that can produce a motherload of actionable intelligence in conjunction with what you already know to be true or false. This stuff works for gathering intelligence, period.
Now, just because it works doesn’t mean we should do it. You’ve made some compelling arguments as to why this should be classified as torture. And if it is torture its effectiveness is a moot point, we shouldn’t do it. This just weakens your argument in my opinion because it is absolutely false and it’s orthogonal to whether or not we should be doing it.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
I’d rather talk about the history of the Ottoman protectorate of the Maghreb and Muslim razzias and slave trafficking of Europeans.
Then you could talk about the Crusades.
Seriously, why don’t you just start a thread about Islam?[/quote]
What aspect of it would you like me to discuss? How about Surah 9:5?
[quote]Moriarty wrote:
If what someone gives you is only 5% truth in an interrogation, that can produce a motherload of actionable intelligence in conjunction with what you already know to be true or false. This stuff works for gathering intelligence, period.
.[/quote]
Moriarty, how do you know so much about this? Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to be flippant; I am not challenging your knowledge. I am just curious.
[quote]Moriarty wrote:
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
And my point was that being tortured enough will make anybody confess to anything – I’ll extend the offer to you: let me waterboard you and see if, after a few days, I dont get a taped confession that you’re a homosexual, you are part of the illuminati, you don’t want to get “too big”, and you hate black people.
Again, these interrogations are not about confessions. If these interrogations were about confessions, perhaps you would be correct, but they aren’t. They are about gathering intelligence, and waterboarding absolutely works for gathering intelligence when applied to the right people by trained individuals. In the cases that we’ve used this technique we’ve applied to the right people (senior members of Al Qaeda with intimate knowledge of their command structure) and gotten actionable intelligence.
This is not an episode of 24. We are not looking for “Yes I am responsible for 9/11” answers. Even if someone gave nothing but lies, that could be used in conjunction with what others have told you and with what you know to be true on the ground to gain intelligence. But 99% of people will give up something true under extreme duress.
If what someone gives you is only 5% truth in an interrogation, that can produce a motherload of actionable intelligence in conjunction with what you already know to be true or false. This stuff works for gathering intelligence, period.
Now, just because it works doesn’t mean we should do it. You’ve made some compelling arguments as to why this should be classified as torture. And if it is torture its effectiveness is a moot point, we shouldn’t do it. This just weakens your argument in my opinion because it is absolutely false and it’s orthogonal to whether or not we should be doing it.[/quote]
I think the fact that it could be used as such makes it too dangerous to allow any (including our own) government to practice any form of torture.
If we allow torture of certain individuals now, even if its just to gather intelligence, whats to stop the government from starting to use it to illicit false confessions?
