ABUSE CRISIS: ACLU : Bush Authorized Torture

Originally posted by DrHoracid
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It would seem many here have seen too many bad cop movies and macho hollywood crap. Interrogation today is very efficient, especially chemical interrogation. This WAR is not some "Steven Sagal" flick.
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If that part of your post was in response to mine..... I will tell you that what I posted is a fact, no "Steven Segal flick....or macho Hollywood crap...." and if you think so then you have a problem with many soldiers/sailors for some reason....

I am sure some of our other members who might have gone through this training will verify this. Any military personnel that will serve or fly in a military aircraft/operation has to go through SERE school.

Originally posted by Muaddib
If that part of your post was in response to mine..... I will tell you that what I posted is a fact, no "Steven Segal flick....or macho Hollywood crap...." and if you think so then you have a problem with many soldiers/sailors for some reason....

I am sure some of our other members who might have gone through this training will verify this. Any military personnel that will serve or fly in a military aircraft/operation has to go through SERE school.

I agree with you Sir. My post was to all those out there that have no concept of war. I wish I had the modern training version before the real life version. Too many treat WAR as if it were a evidence gathering mission for a court case.

I got a grip, and i have no problem. I just wasn't sure exactly to who you were responding with that part of your post, that's all.

These documents authorized by Bush could very well be the one key bit of evidence that brings down his regime violating war crimes acts.

The international community would never touch this though knowing the reprocussions.

I'm sure the U.N said to the Bush Administration, hey if you let the Kofi Annan scandle slide, we'll let the war crimes go and both sides will live happily.

These are the people who are above the law

Originally posted by syntaxer
These documents authorized by Bush could very well be the one key bit of evidence that brings down his regime violating war crimes acts.
.......

If that was the case syntaxer, then most regimes, and most countries will have to be brought for war crimes, as the use of sleep deprivation, puting hoods over people's heads (used by the police in some countries) etc, and other forms of torture like the memo states, are used in all countries, with no exceptions. Police in every country in the world extract information and confessions in some of the ways described in that memo, and even worse in some cases. I am not talking about using them against combatants, or terrorists, but against citizens.


Many of the ways police in every country of the world extract information or confessions are in many cases in some form of deprivation, and some forms of "lesser" torture. Perhaps if the person is a smoker and the police knows it they will use this against you, or by not letting you eat something for some hours, etc, or making false claims/threats.



[edit on 22-12-2004 by Muaddib]

For those that still defend torture let me remind you that our country pride itself of being a nation of compassionate Christian people "Bushes words itself"

And let me remind you that after the scandal in Iraq at the prison was in the open the people in those jails were released.

So I wonder who we were punishing. And when all these gets in the to the international community we are going to look like hypocrites.

Marg, what is said in that memo are not the worse forms of torture. A worse form of torture is slowly beheading someone until you chop their heads off, or raping anyone. I also think that electrocution is too cruel, but what is mentioned in that memo is not the worse form of torture.

No one here has said it concisely so I will. The acts the article directly quotes "interrogation techniques that included sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." are not terrible torture techniques. They are not the rack. They are not beheading or burning or electricuting. They are coercive techniques that involve mostly psycological pressures. I do not believe that their use is inappropriate in a war zone when dealing with enemy combatants. (not uniformed prisoners of war) This country and its populace have in large part become too soft to deal with the real world. The majority of the world understands the harsh reality that the brutality of terrorism will win over the soft bloated ACLU flowerland every day. If the ACLU is allowed to extend the rights of American citizens to terrorists then we have lost. Our human rights are extended to us as a privaledge of citizenship in this country. We have those rights today, at least in part, because during previous threats to this country, enemy combantants were coerced (the aclu would say tortured) into giving information up on the Germans, the Russian, the French, the British and on and on. It is a reality of war that the spys of the enemy, those who do not fight as a soldier but as a cloaked and hidden spy, when discovered will be subjected to coersion in order to extract information. War is brutal and the brutal win it.

That being said let me reiterate that what the memo authorized, if it proven to be accurate, is benign by historical standards of war. It is civilized compared with techniques used by 99% of the other nations of the world. It raised the bar for the world to follow. IF only China, Russia, Cuba, Mexico, all of Africa, and South America, and the Arabian Penisula would limit themselves to psycological coersion the world would have taken a huge step forward. This nation needs to come out of its cream puff induced stupor and stop seeing the world through the rose colored lense of our society. Here we have the luxury of knowing that even if we murder hundreds of people we will be fed 3 times a day and then die a painless death after 15 to 20 years in a posh, by world standards, convicts club, complete with exercise equipment and cable TV. In most other places in the world such a murderer or even murder suspect would be beaten into confession, perhaps even dying under the beating before a confession is extracted. Then the murderer would be sent to a dank hole to suffer until sentence is passed, maybe eating once a day, maybe not. The point is that while we need to seek to raise the banner of human rights in this world we also need to balance that with a realistic view of what the world is and not try to implement utopian standards on a world conflict. If we do this we will be squished like an over ripe tomato and sent yelping from the field of conflict like a whipped dog.

Now that I have said it I invite the Ahabs, of utopia, to pile away at my assessment of world situation but no matter how you pile and pile the veracity of this argument will always stare calliously back at you waiting for your moment of weakness, as your struggling abates, in which to drag you back into the cold depths of reality dissolving your euphorian dream once again. lol :-) ( I laugh at my own melodrama)

Originally posted by Muaddib
Marg, what is said in that memo are not the worse forms of torture. A worse form of torture is slowly beheading someone until you chop their heads off, or raping anyone. I also think that electrocution is too cruel, but what is mentioned in that memo is not the worse form of torture.

Well still after our nation has said over and over that we are protectors of human rights and liberators any type of torture is still not right.

Sometimes we should not preach what we don't believe ourself. Right?

I find all these very damaging to the image of our nation,specially to us the people.

Originally posted by Muaddib
Marg, what is said in that memo are not the worse forms of torture. A worse form of torture is slowly beheading someone until you chop their heads off, or raping anyone. I also think that electrocution is too cruel, but what is mentioned in that memo is not the worse form of torture.

The definition of Torture is the issue here. Torture is a "hot button" word that is just thrown around to produce emotional reactions. I take offense to the use of the word for legitimate interrogations. It would seem that liberals use the word if someone looks at them "wrong". Torture inflicts server physical pain or "long term" emotional pain. How many of these libs would think doing "push-ups" till you drop torture?

Originally posted by marg6043

Well still after our nation has said over and over that we are protectors of human rights and liberators any type of torture is still not right.

Sometimes we should not preach what we don't believe ourself. Right?

I find all these very damaging to the image of our nation,specially to us the people.

Ok Marg, let's protect enemies combatants, from all forms of torture, even if they have some knowledge that might help us stop another terrorist attack in the U.S. Let's even protect those we know that killed hostages, ok?.... There, let's make you happy since you can't deal with the facts of life....

[edit on 22-12-2004 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by Muaddib
Ok Marg, let's protect enemies combatants, from all forms of torture, even if they have some knowledge that might help us stop another terrorist attack in the U.S. Let's even protect those we know that killed hostages, ok?.... There, let's make you happy since you can't deal with the facts of life....

[edit on 22-12-2004 by Muaddib]

Oh, muaddib I am very aware of the fact of life, after all I am a grown women, but when the abuses at the Iraqi prison started, US problems with the resistance was not at a very large scale, US still had control of Iraq at that time.

I have not problem with hanging somebody by their nuts after doing a horrible act unto somebody else specially our troops for not reason.

But at that time most of the people in that jail were not guilty, and I am not surprised that after their released them they were the first ones to turn against our troops and civilians in Iraq.

Remember US poor planning after invasion of Iraq should be blame for the mess in that country as now.

Torture at that prison was illegal and that is that, and that our president and Rumsfeld were link to it, is not very good for the image of our country in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Originally posted by Muaddib

Ok Marg, let's protect enemies combatants, from all forms of torture, even if they have some knowledge that might help us stop another terrorist attack in the U.S. Let's even protect those we know that killed hostages, ok?.... There, let's make you happy since you can't deal with the facts of life....

Straight out of the context of CNN, FoxNews and other mass media used to influence your perception of this war.

Iraqi's had nothing planned, no WMDs, no terrorists in the US so how could the interrogation be useful in preventing terrorist attacks in the US?

Terrorists beheading hostages never took place in Iraq, not once, until the Bush regime decided to invade/occupy that country. Desprite people will use desprite measures to accomplish a goal.

Perhaps the Insurgents are simply fathers/sons/brothers taking up arms to avenge the deaths of their wives/sisters/daughters?

Can you feel the snowball growing?

My husband has a "said so" that sometimes is very irritating, but in these case it make sense.

He always said that "what goes around comes around" and that is exactly what is going on with our Mr. President actions, now is coming back to bite at his butt.

To many people in other parts of the world praying for justice, even if is to another god that is not christian.

Our creator has not boundaries.

Originally posted by syntaxer

Straight out of the context of CNN, FoxNews and other mass media used to influence your perception of this war.

Iraqi's had nothing planned, no WMDs, no terrorists in the US so how could the interrogation be useful in preventing terrorist attacks in the US?

Terrorists beheading hostages never took place in Iraq, not once, until the Bush regime decided to invade/occupy that country. Desprite people will use desprite measures to accomplish a goal.

Perhaps the Insurgents are simply fathers/sons/brothers taking up arms to avenge the deaths of their wives/sisters/daughters?

Can you feel the snowball growing?

You must be the greatest Intel guy ever. You know the ID's of each prisoner, what there motivation was, that they had no intent on harming anyone. Man I want to be you. It must be so nice to have so much wisdom.

But, defending sawing off human heads does indicate a dark side.

as posted by Syntaxer
Perhaps the Insurgents are simply fathers/sons/brothers taking up arms to avenge the deaths of their wives/sisters/daughters?

Yeah? And perhaps they must be all Baathist, from Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria too, huh?




seekerof

Originally posted by Kidfinger
I want to ask everyone reading this thread if you think that the justification and authorization of torture was something the president should have done? Lets see just how many people really care about the "grey area".

Hmmm... tough call. Really tough call...

First you have to define what consitutes "torture" versus "pushing the envelope". For instance, slicing off pieces of a person or zapping them with electricity, I would consider torture. Stripping a prisoner naked, and humiliating them, however, I would consider "pushing the envelope".

I would consider an act of torture to be something that has a good risk of killing the victim (from bloodloss, poisoning, or electric shock), permanently harming them (leaving scars, mutilation, severing extremities), or at the very least, causing an unbearable amount of pain that could throw their system into shock.

I would consider "pushing the envelope" to be something like humiliation (stripping them naked, making degrading comments, mental anguish), discomfort (raising or lowering the temperature in the room to an uncomfortable level, sensory deprivation), and deprivation of non-essentials (solitary confinement, only bread and water, etc.)

I can see a large number of instances where pushing the envelope is neccesary, or at least useful in achieving a specific end, or preventing a scenario from happening.

However, I can only see one instance where torture should ever be considered, and that is if enough lives are at stake and time is an utterly critical element. A good example of these scenarios is shown in 2nd season of "24" where there are only a few hours left to locate a nuclear device to be detonated in a major city. It must be a situation where the need is so great that it outweighs the horrific consequences of such an action.

Do I think that torture was neccesary in the prisons where this took place? I honestly don't know enough of the situation to make that kind of a judgement call, but my instincts say "no". I leave myself open to the possibility that there was a crisis on a grand enough scale to warrant it, but it seems doubtful.

However, I also now must ask, were the prisoners actually tortured, or was the envelope pushed? From what little I saw in the news about this, it seemed like they were pushing the envelope to an extreme degree, but not actually torturing the prisoners. Can someone provide me with some concrete examples of torture methods being used?

It seems this thread has degenterated into the conservatives spouting crap agian. You make it sound like we want to give each terrorist or Iraqi insurgent a million dollars and 50 acres of land. You guys are rediculas. Of course we want justice. But we are not willing to sacrifice God given rights just to have justice. In the end, it is not you conservatives who will judge. Dont forget that.

Edit: theLibra, This is not directed towards you. You replied befor I could.

[edit on 12/22/04 by Kidfinger]

My, my....aren't you calling the kettle black or what?

as posted by Kidfinger
It seems this thread has degenterated into the conservatives spouting crap agian

Of course you will only see it from this perspective. Its blatantly apparent that you have failed to mention the liberal "spouting crap" point of view in your rhetorical criticism? Nice. Keep up the good 'liberal' work.




seekerof

[edit on 22-12-2004 by Seekerof]

Originally posted by DrHoracid

You must be the greatest Intel guy ever. You know the ID's of each prisoner, what there motivation was, that they had no intent on harming anyone. Man I want to be you. It must be so nice to have so much wisdom.

But, defending sawing off human heads does indicate a dark side.

You mean the same dark side of the Bush administration who are well documented in defending Saudi Arabia who continue to carry out public beheadings and break human rights issues. Gotcha

What some 180 beheadings in Saudi Arabia 2003, compared to 15 or so in Iraq?

Zero Iraqi beheadings if the Bush administration didnt falsify intel and mislead the world into this unjust war. So please, do not attempt to align myself with the bad guys here.