Donald Trump: I'd bring back 'a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding'

originally posted by: Bedlam
a reply to: WeAreAWAKE

Not so much. Torture can be anything that inflicts intense stress to elicit information.

If I held your face in the toilet until you lost consciousness, then slap you awake only to do it again, repeatedly, that might not be as painful as drilling a hole in your patella but it's still torture.

A lot of questionably legal interrogation techniques are like this. Putting an unloaded pistol to your head and pulling the trigger when I've led you to believe it might go off is one. The helicopter treatment is another. Different from having a soldering iron shoved up your butt but nonetheless effective. They also have the benefit of not leaving obvious marks.

As a question to you, if three or four guys hold you down and hold your nose and mouth shut, in about three minutes, will you call that torture? Even if they're really gentle as they suffocate you?

I won't argue, but every definition I've seen say "pain". Otherwise...why can't I call incarceration torture? Being yelled at could be torture. If it includes mental anguish...what can't be called torture.

And as mean as it may sound...and I'm actually a very nice guy...I really don't give a damn if evil is used against evil. Maybe if the USA still used fire to fight fire, instead of worrying about blowing sparks...we wouldn't have to talk so much about the possible use of mental anguish.

a reply to: crazyewok

I understand and won't argue your points. They are well made. But about the Constitution which I actually do support as you pointed out. The Constitution applies to American citizens...at least in my opinion. Terrorists, war criminals, illegal invaders, etc. aren't protected by the Constitution of the United States of America. "WE the people of the United States".

www.phillymag.com...

To say the killing of Osama bin Laden created a patriotic euphoria would be a gross understatement. Spontaneous celebrations broke out across the nation. The image of thousands chanting “U-S-A” from Ground Zero was simply awe-inspiring. It was a great day for America.

According to CIA officials, that achievement was made possible in large part because their enhanced interrogation methods extracted information about the al-Qaeda courier who led the U.S. to bin Laden. If that’s not the definition of “success,” nothing is.

Yet, despite that, the United States is still not fully committed to winning the War on Terror, since we continue to debate whether waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” should be used on terrorists hell-bent on destroying us.


Read more at www.phillymag.com...

The partisan report that was released saying it did not do anything is supported by the same party that is releasing people from Guantanamo, cutting back our military and wanting to gender neutral our armed services.

www.cbsnews.com...

From the mouths of the 'operatives', not the politicians...

Jose Rodriguez has no regrets about using the "enhanced interrogation techniques" - methods that some consider torture -- on al Qaeda detainees questioned after 9/11 and denies charges they didn't work. The former head of the CIA's Clandestine Service talks to Lesley Stahl about those methods, including waterboarding, for the first time and defends their use - even comparing them to the current policy of killing al Qaeda leaders with drone strikes. The Rodriguez interview will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, April 29 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Rodriguez says everything his interrogators did to top-level terrorists like Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah was legal and effective. "We made some al Qaeda terrorists with American blood on their hands uncomfortable for a few days," he tells Stahl. "I am very secure in what we did and am very confident that what we did saved American lives," says Rodriguez, who has written a book on the subject called "Hard Measures."

Lesley Stahl discusses her "60 Minutes" report

Pressed by Stahl about charges that Zubaydah, who was waterboarded and sleep deprived, gave false information that wasted U.S. resources, Rodriguez replies, "Bull****!, He gave us a roadmap that allowed us to capture a bunch of al Qaeda senior leaders," says the ex-spy.

Rodriguez says the interrogation program, which also included stress positions, nudity and "insult slaps," was "about instilling a sense of hopelessness...despair...so that he [the detainee] would conclude on his own that he was better off cooperating with us." He says that even Khalid Sheik Mohammed, whom he termed "the toughest detainee we had," eventually gave up information.

I will believe someone who is in the # before I believe a career politician...

www.sfgate.com...

Former CIA Directors George Tenet and Porter Goss contend that harsh techniques helped deliver valuable intelligence. Leon Panetta said waterboarding is “torture,” and the methods produced clues that led to Osama bin Laden. Democratic committee staffers combed through 6.3 million documents, Feinstein noted. The GOP minority report countered that the Democrats’ staff never interviewed CIA officials, even after a federal probe had been closed. My issue with the Feinstein report was that it cost $40 million and years of staff work to try to prove something I do not believe can be proved, i.e., that the CIA could have found the information through other means.

So, they never interviewed the CIA who were the ones who performed the acts. So, how did they come up with the data and intel?

Sorry, if a combatant terrorist is captured and there is reason to believe his intel can stop future attacks...waterboard, chemicals...I do not care. He gave his life to kill for a purpose and our countrymen need to know why, where and who... at any cost.

originally posted by: matafuchs

Sorry, if a combatant terrorist is captured and there is reason to believe his intel can stop future attacks...waterboard, chemicals...I do not care. He gave his life to kill for a purpose and our countrymen need to know why, where and who... at any cost.

The ends don't justify the means. Why do you want to become evil to fight evil?

Good for Trump. Screw those terrorist bastards and any who support them.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

What was that about "he who fights monsters"?

a reply to: Eilasvaleleyn

He who nuked Japan won the war. When you win you can worry about morality. In my mind there is nothing more moral then stopping evil people do evil things and you can't do that by asking them nicely to stop hurting people.

a reply to: GuacBowlMerchant

So the ends justify the means to you? You are willing to become a monster like eilasvaleleyn was eluding to just to kill other monsters?

Please explain to me how doing evil things like that doesn't make you evil yourself.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I do not look at waterboarding as a sadistic form of torture. Ripping out fingernails. Nailing hands to chairs. Beating someone unconscious over and over and over. To me that is sadistic. There is a pleasure derived by the sick bastard doing it. NO reason for that type of physical torture.

The ones complaining are the ones who it happened to. Of course they would complain! Hell, I would not want to be waterboarded because it sucks. It is supposed to. It is to get the person to ask to stop and give up information.

Waterboarding is not evil. Strapping yourself with explosives to kill and maim in the name of a god? That is evil....

a reply to: GuacBowlMerchant

He who nuked Japan didn't do it out of a perverted sense of vengeance, and it's highly disputable that nuking Japan was the correct choice regardless. Perhaps there was another option that didn't kill millions upon millions of innocent civilians. Perhaps there was not.

Still, nuking Japan fulfilled its "intended" purpose. Japan surrendered.
Torture does not. It does not extract reliable information.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Who is becoming a monster? Fighting to protect people from monsters is absolutely the right thing to do. No one forced them to be terrorists or bomb pearl harbor or whatever. It's not something you want to do but it's something you have to do.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

The analogy isn't even all that accurate. There's a difference between using a newly developed nuclear weapon in a time of war, and torturing some random schmuck the CIA picked up off the street because they got confused and he had an Arabic name.

Nuking Japan was not ideologically correct, but pragmatic.
Torture is neither ideologically correct, or pragmatic. Because, AGAIN, it just doesn't work.

a reply to: matafuchs

Except it produces no results worth pursuing. Torture, even mild forms of it like waterboarding, doesn't work.

Experienced interrogator: Torture doesn’t work

Torture doesn’t work, says science: Why are we still doing it?

Why torture doesn't work: A definitive guide

a reply to: GuacBowlMerchant

You're not fighting them, you're inserting a soldering iron into their arse and turning up the heat every time they say something you don't want them to. If you can't make the distinction the you're a lost cause.

No one is arguing that terrorists shouldn't be shot on the field of battle.

originally posted by: GuacBowlMerchant
a reply to: Krazysh0t

Who is becoming a monster? Fighting to protect people from monsters is absolutely the right thing to do. No one forced them to be terrorists or bomb pearl harbor or whatever. It's not something you want to do but it's something you have to do.

So what is forcing us to become monsters and break international war laws to fight them?

ETA: One more thing, how do you know that the people being tortured are even terrorists or terrorist sympathizers?

a reply to: Eilasvaleleyn

Fair enough and agreed.

originally posted by: WeAreAWAKE
a reply to: crazyewok

I understand and won't argue your points. They are well made. But about the Constitution which I actually do support as you pointed out. The Constitution applies to American citizens...at least in my opinion. Terrorists, war criminals, illegal invaders, etc. aren't protected by the Constitution of the United States of America. "WE the people of the United States".

1st the Supreme Court has declared all people in US jurisdiction as having basic rights under constitution.

2nd As you as you make a exception you open the government up to make more exceptions.

Better not to give the government any more power than they need.


BUT

What I will say is that I’m ok with a unofficial middle ground.

No state SANCTIONED torture is something neither of our nations should go down. Full stop.

Neither of our nations employ official state sanctioned torture and neither of us have streets that are a terrorist blood bath.

but

If a agent knocks a actually terrorist caught in the field around and does some things to them behind closed doors and off the books I won’t really complain. But if they get caught then they and their superiors need to face the consequences which if they get it wrong means long long prison sentence but if they get it right maybe a light reprimand.

originally posted by: GuacBowlMerchant
a reply to: Eilasvaleleyn

He who nuked Japan won the war. When you win you can worry about morality. In my mind there is nothing more moral then stopping evil people do evil things and you can't do that by asking them nicely to stop hurting people.

And while denying due process and circumventing human rights what if a innocent person is tortured and/or killed?
What if your tortured or killed by mistake?

These right are not there to protect terrorists but me and you from government that inherently incompetent and always takes powers to far.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I don't know of many nations that were founded on international law or voted for it. Nations need to do what is necessary to defend themselves and abide by their morals the best they can but victory and preventing loss of innocent life should be paramount in my view and far above any other concerns. The last major war America won it nuked Japan and interned Japanese, food for thought.

a reply to: GuacBowlMerchant

Food for thought, WWII was much more dire circumstances than Muslim terrorism presents to the US. Muslim terrorism is really not that threatening to the American homeland.

Also food for thought, torture doesn't work! That has been proven by science.