Cheney endorses simulated drowning

ledvedderman

jlew24asu wrote:

what the hell is that suppose to mean

I'm guessing he thinks because you have asu in your name that you went to Arizona State...or Alabama, Alaska, or Arkansas. Am I missing any?

jlew24asu

ledvedderman wrote:

I'm guessing he thinks because you have asu in your name that you went to Arizona State...or Alabama, Alaska, or Arkansas. Am I missing any?

well yea I got that. but dont know why my response would yield such a comment. then again, people like him resort to useless personal attacks when they have nothing intelligent to say.

cincybearcat

I think it is very tough to determine what is 'crossing the line' when you are dealing with even a potential terrorist that may have information that could save 100s or 1000s or 10000s or who knows how many innocent lives.

I'm glad I don't have ot draw that line...if you had a suspect in custody, and you were in charge of getting info out of him/her, what would you do? What if you didn;t get any info and 2000 people died in an attack? And then you find out the suspect knew all about it? How do you feel then? Would you change your tactics? How far would you go to protect 2000 lives? But what if he/she really doesn't know anything? How would you feel if you 'tortured' them and still didn;t get any info because he/she didn;t have any info?

Tough place to be.

Vedderlution_Baby

cincybearcat wrote:

I think it is very tough to determine what is 'crossing the line' when you are dealing with even a potential terrorist that may have information that could save 100s or 1000s or 10000s or who knows how many innocent lives.

I'm glad I don't have ot draw that line...if you had a suspect in custody, and you were in charge of getting info out of him/her, what would you do? What if you didn;t get any info and 2000 people died in an attack? And then you find out the suspect knew all about it? How do you feel then? Would you change your tactics? How far would you go to protect 2000 lives? But what if he/she really doesn't know anything? How would you feel if you 'tortured' them and still didn;t get any info because he/she didn;t have any info?

Tough place to be.

Yea man. Get what you're saying. It's a tough decision to make. ON the one hand, you could get all the information you needed to stop another 9/11. On the other, if you toture anyone long enough they'll admit that they themselves curcified christ.

Jackhammer

and how many innocents finally said they were guilty under torture?

cincybearcat

I just think it is way to easy to judge this topic by typing your opinion on a band message board, but it's another thing if you are actually there and dealing with reality.

I personally don;t think there is 1 line that can be drawn. It's not black and white. it's a grey area that depends on a lot fo factors.

yosi1

Rushlimbo wrote:

Now I know why people go to Arizona Sate as a last resort.

That's a fallacious argument. Its an ad hominem. It doesn't prove your point.

Learn how to debate.

Jackhammer

cincybearcat wrote:

I just think it is way to easy to judge this topic by typing your opinion on a band message board, but it's another thing if you are actually there and dealing with reality.

I personally don;t think there is 1 line that can be drawn. It's not black and white. it's a grey area that depends on a lot fo factors.

You know, that's why we're debating. To get ideas from one another, and avoid stuff like "you don't live here, you don't get it, you have no idea" like I've read here many times.

We people debate with the mean we have, but it SHOULD be the politic "we" vote for, that should bring up ideas. That's why we vote. Because those people present themselves as ruler, so once elected, they should get to work.

My problem with politic nowadays, it's that getting elected is the end. The campaign is hard work, getting elected is the prize. And once in charge, they are all doing just as bad as anyone of us would make in that situation.

Puck78

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/26/usdom14465.htm
(follow link for more links and for a slideshow documenting historical uses of waterboarding as torture)

U.S.: Vice President Endorses Torture

Cheney Expresses Approval of the CIA’s Use of Waterboarding
(Washington, DC, October 26, 2006) – U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has issued the Bush administration’s first clear endorsement of a form of torture known as waterboarding, or mock drowning, said Human Rights Watch today.

If Iran or Syria detained an American, Cheney is saying that it would be perfectly fine for them to hold that American’s head under water until he nearly drowns, if that’s what they think they need to do to save Iranian or Syrian live.

In a radio interview yesterday, Cheney agreed that subjecting prisoners to “a dunk in water” is a “no-brainer” if it could save lives. After being asked about this technique, he said that such interrogations have been a “very important tool” used against high-level al Qaeda detainees such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and that they do not, in his view, constitute torture.

Cheney’s comments on the legality of waterboarding contradict the views of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Defense Department, as well as fundamental principles of international law, and could come back to haunt the United States if not corrected by the Bush administration, Human Rights Watch warned.

“If Iran or Syria detained an American, Cheney is saying that it would be perfectly fine for them to hold that American’s head under water until he nearly drowns, if that’s what they think they need to do to save Iranian or Syrian lives,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

Waterboarding dates at least to the Spanish Inquisition, when it was known as the tormenta de toca. It has been used by some of the most cruel dictatorships in modern times, including the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In some versions of the technique, prisoners are strapped to a board, their faces covered with cloth or cellophane, and water is poured over their mouths to stimulate drowning; in others, they are dunked head-first into water.

The United States has long considered waterboarding to be torture and a war crime. As early as 1901, a U.S. court martial sentenced Major Edwin Glenn to 10 years of hard labor for subjecting a suspected insurgent in the Philippines to the “water cure.” After World War II, U.S. military commissions successfully prosecuted as war criminals several Japanese soldiers who subjected American prisoners to waterboarding. A U.S. army officer was court-martialed in February 1968 for helping to waterboard a prisoner in Vietnam.

The U.S. Congress recently adopted the Military Commissions Act, which criminalized under all circumstances treatment of prisoners that causes serious physical or mental pain or suffering. The legislation explicitly states that such suffering need not be “prolonged” for the treatment to constitute a war crime, a rebuke to past Bush administration legal opinions that reportedly permitted waterboarding on the questionable grounds that the terror it induces does not have a prolonged impact on its victims. Two of the chief sponsors of the legislation, Senators John McCain and John Warner, have said that it criminalizes waterboarding.

In April 2006, in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, more than 100 U.S. law professors stated unequivocally that waterboarding is torture, and is a criminal felony punishable under the U.S. federal criminal code.

“Vice President Cheney needs to get a better lawyer, someone who will tell him not to endorse criminal activities over the airwaves,” said Malinowski.

On September 6, the Pentagon issued a new Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation that explicitly forbids the use of waterboarding in any interrogation. General Jeff Kimmons, the Senior Intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, explained when these new rules were released: “No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tell us that.” The U.S. Army’s new counterinsurgency manual states that “torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment is never a morally permissible option, even in situations where lives depend on gaining information.” It concludes that those who “lose moral legitimacy” by employing such methods “lose the war.”

jeffbr

Rushlimbo wrote:

There is no torture according to these Chickenhawks. It is called "pressure" now, not torture.

Maybe. My question was an honest one. I don't know what constitutes torture. Waterboarding is probably on the "torture" side of the line even though nobody will really drown, so no physical harm will come to the person. Is extreme emotional distress torture?

What about being locked in a cold cell and made to listen to Bon Jovi 24 hours a day?

What about wiping my ass with the Koran while the detainees are praying?

I'm all for making them extremely uncomfortable. I'm all for breaking their will. I'm all for exerting the strongest "pressure" possible. I'm against torture as a method of extracting info - if for no other reason than the questionable quality of data extracted during torture. I'm just trying to figure out in my own mind where that line is.

Puck78

jeffbr wrote:

What about being locked in a cold cell and made to listen to Bon Jovi 24 hours a day?
What about wiping my ass with the Koran while the detainees are praying?

both the things have been used in Guantanamo (extremely loud rock music and pissing over the Koran, or tearing it apart) have been used in Guantanamo.
And, yes, strong emotional/psychological distress is considered as torture (example: a mock execution is torture).

jeffbr

Puck78 wrote:

both the things have been used in Guantanamo (extremely loud rock music and pissing over the Koran, or tearing it apart) have been used in Guantanamo.
And, yes, strong emotional/psychological distress is considered as torture (example: a mock execution is torture).

See I don't have a problem if the fuckers are cold and uncomfortable. I don't have a problem if they feel their religion is insulted. I don't consider either of those torture. I do have a problem with waterboarding, breaking fingers, electrocuting testicles, cigarette burns, etc... To me, the latter are forms of torture, the former are coersive interrogation techniques.

rebornFixer

yosi wrote:

That's a fallacious argument. Its an ad hominem. It doesn't prove your point.

Learn how to debate.

Agreed. Acting like an ass is a poor tactic.

rebornFixer

jeffbr wrote:

See I don't have a problem if the fuckers are cold and uncomfortable. I don't have a problem if they feel their religion is insulted. I don't consider either of those torture. I do have a problem with waterboarding, breaking fingers, electrocuting testicles, cigarette burns, etc... To me, the latter are forms of torture, the former are coersive interrogation techniques.

Agreed, more or less.

Abookamongstthemany

jeffbr wrote:

See I don't have a problem if the fuckers are cold and uncomfortable. I don't have a problem if they feel their religion is insulted. I don't consider either of those torture. I do have a problem with waterboarding, breaking fingers, electrocuting testicles, cigarette burns, etc... To me, the latter are forms of torture, the former are coersive interrogation techniques.

Only for those given a fair trial, correct?

jlew24asu

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/27/cheney.torture.ap/index.html

jlew24asu

chiefojibwa wrote:

guilty until proven innocent.

what an age we live in. god bless the usa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_combatant

Abookamongstthemany

chiefojibwa wrote:

so, would you please go on record and state, as a fact, that we have not rounded up ONE innocent person in our war on terrorism?

That's just crazy and dare I say it.....*ducks the flames*..... Nazi-like.

jlew24asu

chiefojibwa wrote:

so, would you please go on record and state, as a fact, that we have not rounded up ONE innocent person in our war on terrorism?

please go on the record. thats funny. like this is some court room or something.

Abookamongstthemany

chiefojibwa wrote:

WTF are you talking about.

Holding so many people without charges or trials in these horrible conditions. sorry I didnt make that clearer, my fault.