Is waterboarding torture?

Link to article by Christopher Hitchens about his own firsthand experience.

Don't have to read it. Torture is torture and the ends don't justify the means no matter how much you trivialize the means to get to that end. We should be better than that.

Is it possible to vote in just one section.? I personally do not believe that there is a 'War on Terror'

Yes, I think it's torture. However, if torture means "the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure" (Webster's dictionary) or "the infliction of severe pain as a punishment or a forcible means of persuasion" (OED), then perhaps the authorities can argue that it isn't torture if it doesn't involve physical pain.

We've long since slipped into the surreal world where the barbaric torture exhibited daily by the Americans is accepted by the general population.

You should hang your collective dumbed-down heads together!

Of course is feckin torture, as is THIS

Imagine for a split second that this were YOUR children! How would you feel then?

Have to dissent on this one. I don't consider it torture, and it has given good results.

1. I liked the music
2. It seemed less stressful than the following links purport: http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/047009.php

Still, I suppose that instead of waterboarding, we could always either ask the prisoners "nicely" about their mis-demeanours (over a cup of tea and piece of cake) or we could subject them to the same treatement that they carried out against their victims.

Difficult one.

People will admit to being the Pope and the devil in one entity when subjected to watching their kids being sodomised or simulated drowning.

It has no place in a so called modern democratic country. SO your at war, so fcuk? Prisoners of war should not be subjected to torture, at all!!

GENEVA CONVENTION

Habeas corpus

Two RIGHTS the Amis seem hell bent on ignoring!

Ignorance in bloom, ever heard of innocent until proven guilty? Until such times and through a court of law, ALL individuals are only alledged or suspects.

This issue has confounded me for years.

The Geneva Convention covers the standard Hogans Heroes world of warfare. Uniforms must be worn, officers treated differently than enlisted men, etc. etc.

But what about state-less, army-less, rank-less terrorists? Alan Dershowitz (who got Klaus von Bulow off) is pretty darned left wing, but has an intersting perspective on the "ticking time bomb" thought exercise.

Personally, I don't have any issues with Jesus or Allah ... but the machinations of their fan clubs continue to drive me completely bananas.

Information derived from torture is never reliable. It's a useless and shameful exercise, and it's hard to believe that in the 21st century there are still so-called intelligent and educated people who advocate it.

So special forces and other soldiers not in uniform are 'unlawful combatants' then, and can't avail themselves of the protections of the Geneva Conventions?


Derschowitz left wing? Be serious.

quote: Imagine for a split second that this were YOUR children! How would you feel then?

My children are not terrorists, furthermore, the British have used the same tactic on the Irish for thirty years in Northern Ireland, with good effect.

No they didn't, where the fuck did you read that? Hooding and stress positions were used, and were ruled illegal by the ECHR IIRC.

What's good for Jack Bauer must be good for America...

Or not. Even if torture works, it removes any legitimacy that your force has. We (the West) believe we are right because we follow 'civilised' rules. When we stop doing that we may as well go home. And besides, it annoys the natives, some of them enough to join the terrorists.

Interestingly enough, I believe that some senior US military figures have criticised 24 for the use of torture saying that it is instilling an "ends justifies the means" mentality in the military. Even if we get to the ticking nuke idea, all the torture victim has to do is to generate enough spurious information so that the bomb-disposal forces are kept running around.

Yes. They roll the dice and pay the price. That's why it's called "unconventional warfare".


Oh, c'mon.

He can be considered left-wing only in the bizarre topsy-turvy world that is US politics.

As compared to what, UK politics? Help me out here.

Nope, blackmail and cash payments were good enough. If you are referring to internment, it was an excellent way of getting information from the informant by lifting 50 or so people (either known terrorists or sympathisers) including the informant and then, upon release, letting them in-fight as to who knew what and who told whom what. (Considerably safer than meeting the informant in "secret".

So special forces and other soldiers not in uniform are 'unlawful combatants' then, and can't avail themselves of the protections of the Geneva Conventions?

Yes , as far as i am aware , this is indeed the case

Quote: No they didn't, where the fuck did you read that? Hooding and stress positions were used, and were ruled illegal by the ECHR IIRC.

I saw it on RTE (Irish television) while I lived ther for 7 years. The Irish have complained for years about British abuses. But, the fact is, they were effective in stopping terrorist attacks.

@Expaticus

No-one who knows anything about politics has called Tony Blair left-wing for 25 years.

Let's not get sidetracked. Left-winger or not (not, IMO), Derschowitz is an apologist for torture.

@yanksavage

Totally wrong. Waterboarding was never used by the Brits in NI, not even unofficially as far as I'm aware. I've never heard even Sinn Fein say that it was used.

Okay.

So setting aside Ho Chi Min, Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, all of post-war-behind-the-Iron-Curtain governments, Castro, etc. etc., what anti-torture left-wingers are (no pun intended) left?

Okay, I can think of one. And a noble cause at that.

Just askin'.

The when did you stop beating your wife type question.

The question is meaningless. How about - If you were interrogating a "Terrorist" how far would you go to gain information on a time sensitive pending attack?

And before you answer, think of the consequences of failure (To gain the information) and how you would answer for that failure.

Vs.

You’re arrested after committing a crime because the police had probable cause and now they are trying to get a confession.

The question depends on the context. Morally relative? Well, yes it is.

@ Extpaticus

Who cares? It's not the point. Waterboarding was ruled torture by US military authorities in 1947 and 1968.

Well yes you could. I read of an American officer charged with getting information from German prisoners after WW2. He said they got much more information by playing cards together or a game of pool than they ever got by coertion.

How often does this occur? Got any evidence of time-sensitive attacks which have been stopped? Like, real, documented evidence? Lots of attacks have allegedly been stopped by policework in the UK and other places. If any of them were time-sensitive we'd have heard all about it, surely, given the amount of detail released.

Wrong.

How often? I don't know and most likely we will not know until some future date. It is very similiar to the release of classified information from WWII.

Do we need to have a number? We must have X number of attacks, either thwarted or completed, or people killed and then we will determine what we can or cannot do to obtain information.

The question is still valid. If you were in a position of responsibility how much downside risk would you take with your citizens lives Vs. risks to the "Terrorists"?

Tough call either way you make it.

This happens!

The issue appears to be cultural assymetry.

Germans would also observe the Geneva convention and play cards and smoke butts with brits and americans ... whilst they were indiscrimiantly shooting russians and poles in the back of the head and throwing them into pits. When the russian overran east germany, there weren't a lot of war crimes tribunals assembled to prosecute all the rape cases. The Japanese routinely hacked off the heads of americans and brits, and in return (arguably) received less preferential treatment. We've (admirably) always held ourselves to higher standards.

Today, a tiny minority of Allah's fan club likes to kill european cartoonists and behead western journalists, subjugate females and keep kids from flying kites. So, what should be done? If we're always letter-of-the-law to western traditions, then we gain the moral high ground with our populaces, but are then taunted by them for being "weak". If we give them a dose of their own medicine, then we're not true to our cultural values. Hmmm.

As I said before, I am personally confounded by the whole issue. My vote is to take the moral high ground and show them what we're really all about ... fair play and all that. The problem seems to be that they historically haven't responded well to that approach. I really don't like setting rat traps out in the barn because I usually like little furry creatures ... but I find myself engaging in a bit of moral relativism in of belief system vs. potential threat.

I guess we can all just wait and see what happens. I remain an optimist ... seeing as apartheid in the US was vanquished in my lifetime.

I can't believe what I just read, so the Iraqi kids being buggered are terrorists then? To my knowledge the UK forces in NI didn't bugger kids or rape women to get confessions from their spouses/parents.


How misguided can one be? Without going in to too much detail you shouldn't believe everything the papers tell you about what happened in the 25 years conflict. It was the perfect "training ground" for new recruits, an Iraq/Afghanistan of yesteryear. A never ending war with an invisible enemy. Don't also be fooled into thinking that every ONE of the terror attrocities on mainland Britain accredited to the IRA were actually carried out by the IRA. There's that old False Flag getting waved around again. Remember Manchester?


You can bet your bottom dollar if an imminent attack was thwarted we would hear about it, anything for the cause and all that. The reason you can't name one is because there have been no imminent attacks thwarted, there is no real threat. It's a perception of fear, in the 70s 80s and 90s it was the IRA, nowadays it's Al Ciada. Keep the populace frightened and they'll do whatever you wish in return for some "virtual security". No one in their right mind feels safer now in the UK and USA than they did pre2001

My, what an incredible amount of shite gets peddled here now. British, American (and even Irish terrorists/freedom fighters - you make your own choice) have shot defenceless prisoners in the back of the head. The Warwicks on Luneburger Heath taking revenge for the massacre at Arras. American GIs shooting anything that might possibly be German at Dachau. The widespread rape of German women. It's a lack of control. Becoming 'them'. Becoming animals. What are we fighting for? Because I've forgotten. Was it to keep the West free from expensive fuel? If so, we failed miserably. The US Military (and I'm sure The British as well) stooping to this level sends out a clear and concise message: If it's okay for us to do it, then pity any of our own that get captured. A few bullets to the backs of the heads of our so-called Commanders in Chiefs might stop the blind stupidity. But then, when you've got a Commander in Chief who cannot even string a coherent sentence together, I suppose you have to wonder if a bullet to the back of his head would do any damage anyway.

So the Terrorists arrested planning to blow up Airliners over the Atlantic with chemicals doesn't qualify?

or How about these.

The following is a list of known terror plots thwarted by the U.S. government since Sept. 11, 2001.
• December 2001, Richard Reid: British citizen attempted to ignite shoe bomb on flight from Paris to Miami.
• May 2002, Jose Padilla: American citizen accused of seeking "dirty bomb," convicted of conspiracy.
• September 2002, Lackawanna Six: American citizens of Yemeni origin convicted of supporting Al Qaeda. Five of six were from Lackawanna, N.Y.
• May 2003, Iyman Faris: American citizen charged with trying to topple the Brooklyn Bridge.
• June 2003, Virginia Jihad Network: Eleven men from Alexandria, Va., trained for jihad against American soldiers, convicted of violating the Neutrality Act, conspiracy.
• August 2004, Dhiren Barot: Indian-born leader of terror cell plotted bombings on financial centers (see additional images).

• August 2004, James Elshafay and Shahawar Matin Siraj: Sought to plant bomb at New York's Penn Station during the Republican National Convention.
• August 2004, Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain: Plotted to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat on American soil.
• June 2005, Father and son Umer Hayat and Hamid Hayat: Son convicted of attending terrorist training camp in Pakistan; father convicted of customs violation.
• August 2005, Kevin James, Levar Haley Washington, Gregory Vernon Patterson and Hammad Riaz Samana: Los Angeles homegrown terrorists who plotted to attack National Guard, LAX, two synagogues and Israeli consulate.

• December 2005, Michael Reynolds: Plotted to blow up refinery in Wyoming, convicted of providing material support to terrorists.
• February 2006, Mohammad Zaki Amawi, Marwan Othman El-Hindi and Zand Wassim Mazloum: Accused of providing material support to terrorists, making bombs for use in Iraq.
• April 2006, Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee: Cased and videotaped the Capitol and World Bank for a terrorist organization.
• June 2006, Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin, Lyglenson Lemorin, and Rotschild Augstine: Accused of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower.
• July 2006, Assem Hammoud: Accused of plotting to hit New York City train tunnels.
• August 2006, Liquid Explosives Plot: Thwarted plot to explode ten airliners over the United States.
• May 2007, Fort Dix Plot: Six men accused of plotting to attack Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey.
• June 2007, JFK Plot: Four men accused of plotting to blow up fuel arteries underneath JFK Airport in New York.
• March 2007, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Mastermind of Sept. 11 and author of numerous plots confessed in court in March 2007 to planning to destroy skyscrapers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.


Its Al-Qaeda.

Here's a link to a list of perceived fears.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda_terror_campaign

or better yet, tell the survivors of 9-11 that it was perception that attacked that day.

I can't be arsed tearing your post apart and posting how the majority of cases fell apart. As far as the "Plan to blow up airliners over the Atlantic" was concerned, this has been outed as the biggest pile of pish that anyone could come up with,

Some of those arrested didn't have passports, none had purchased tickets and chemical experts from Cambridge dismissed the claims as bunkham, saying that it would be absolutely impossible to carry out these attacks in the fashion described without A) the men passing out from the fumes, Other passengers noticing, C)Blowing themselves up. They required a at least 30 minutes mixing in a non-volatile, completely sterile environment to have any chance at all of success.

Reality sucks.

This quote sounds like it came from someone who has swallowed wholesale the propaganda that passes as "news" in the USA. Creating a false sense of emergency is a classic approach to persuading normally rational people to abandon common sense. Is this all it took for the criminals currently in the White House to conquer American values? Wow. Too easy.

I find it really interesting that of 46 votes (thus far), an aggregate of 7 (15%) would say that waterboarding is torture but that it should be used in the war against terror. What does that say about "us"?

Disclaimer: I'm not a statistician but sometimes play one on TT.

There is no "War on Terror"...

It is impossible and the constant repeating of this little slice of propaganda only leaves us dumber.

It's a hypothetical question to demonstrate that a simple question, Is waterboarding torture?, can generate various responses when it is applied to various scenarios. As the discrepancy in the opinion poll numbers demonstrate, as pointed out by Mr. Runner.

"Creating a false sense of emergency is a classic approach to persuading normally rational people to abandon common sense.", so I guess what you are saying is that common sense leads us to conclude that there is no threat posed by "Terrorists". And for those who believe there is a threat than we have no common sense. One may never know how many Terrorist attacks have been thwarted these past few years, but to believe there is no threat does not pass the common sense test. Just look at the attacks on 9-11, in Spain, and in the UK.

This quote sounds like someone who buries his head in the sand and hopes the problem will just go away, it is a classic denial approach that some normally rational people use when they don't want to believe reality.

I suppose this could be considered as torture - depends how long one leaves the waterboardee in the submersed position. What is the Pentagon guidlines on this?

No. It doesn't depend. Torture is torture. That's the same crap argument as saying "anything that doesn't cause permanent or visible injury isn't torture".

Putting aside my feelings about Peter Hitchens, his article is nevertheless worth a read:

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/feature.../hitchens200808

and

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vuhJUmR4B6Q

Can you explain the "with good effect" part of your idiotic statement, fuckwit?

These terrorist attacks, and I include "9-11" in this, were tragic and ugly criminal acts. They should have been dealt with as such from the beginning. However, the US government did a nice job of convincing its citizens that these were acts of war, and has kept its citizens so scared they are under threat of "imminent attack" that they'll agree to ANYTHING. Anything, including attacking a country that hasn't attacked them, including reinstating torture, including eliminating the personal freedoms that america stands for and implementing a police state.

I would think american citizens would have some healthy skepticism for anything this government tells them now that it's clear the rational for attacking Iraq was based on lies. Personally, I never believed the reasons the Bush government gave -- but Americans were frightened, so ok. However, now that the truth is out there's no excuse now for continuing to be victimized by this "imminent threat" nonsense that the Bush government uses to keep its populace cowed. And there's NO excuse for torture.

/rant.

It looks like I am gonna have to add practicing holding my breath to my daily schedule just in case I am picked up by those nasty British and American operatives. Still I would prefer water boarding to having those electrodes attached to my testicles. Has anyone any experience with this? Probably something you could try out at home. What would be a safe voltage?

Maybe check on the adult chat section.

Healthy Skepticism - yes.

But to believe that there is no threat or that we should treat Terrorists as common criminals subject to standard police practices is suicidal.

Standard? No. Never said standard. WAY above standard. This is something for the intelligence agencies to handle, and that is how it should have been handled from day one. Now it's time for Americans to stop being cowed by the scare tactics and use good judgment to get out of the hellish mess they're in. Stop being manipulated!

I thought we were the manipulators

The world has had 7 years to wake up from this mess, the fact is the vast portion of the population of ths planet are either too lazy, too stupid or too concerned with their own egoistic lives that they've failed to act. Bush and his buddies are already putting plans in place that will create another event even more spectacular than 911. This will be blamed on the Iranians or Syrians and be the pretext for the Third War.

Now here's where it get's interesting, Bush is due to leave office this year right? WRONG! If this False Flag attack goes down as planned, bush will declare A State of Emergency and Martial Law will prevail. The plans have already been laid allowing BUSH alone to declare Martial Law under Executive Order MORE HERE

2008 could be quite a memorable year.