Military Leaders: Ignore Bush Veto Threat, Ban Waterboarding

Military Leaders: Ignore Bush Veto Threat, Ban Waterboarding

www.huffingtonpost.com

Thirty retired admirals and generals have penned a letter to key Democrats, urging them to defy President Bush's veto threats and pass legislation requiring U.S intelligence agents to follow strict standards for detainee treatment.

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Once again some brave men are standing up for what they believe in. Let's see what happens this time.

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im glad to see this happening. i just wish that the people detaining people would think about it like that. just because you have the authority to do something doesnt make it right. i could go antagonize someone into fighting me and put them in the hospital but i dont and why? because its not the right thing to do. what ever happened to having a conscience?

It's one small step of many, but I am glad to, to hear that finally it may not be falling on deaf ears. Lets hope this one gets through.

Look, I'm not someone who supports torture. For the most part, I'm not so sure it even works with regards to gaining legitimate and accurate information. I think the threat or fear of torture is far more effective than torture itself.

That being said, I think that our government should at least have the option available to them as a last resort. It has already been said that water boarding is what led to a confession and a mountain of intelligence from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a top al-Qaida leader. I think that tying the hands of our interrogators only undermines their abilities to gain important intelligence. Obviously, I think that such extreme measures should be used rarely- if at all- and only under the most extreme circumstances or as a last resort. Everything that can be done to properly monitor such measures by the appropriate personnel, including physicians, should be done. Perhaps such measures should only be allowed to be performed at the expressed written concent of the CIA Director, Sec of Defense or the President himself. I'm just throwing ideas out there for making this work.

I just personally feel that terrorists in our custody will be far more forthcoming if they believe that we will do whatever is necessary to gain the information we need.

reply to post by Rasputin13


This is why China gets away with so many human rights abuse. America has lost the moral high ground to put pressure on them, and other nations like Burma.

Torturing militants is just propaganda for Al Qaeda, who will use it as a recruitement drive. You will never win a war against terrorism if you cannot win the hearts and minds.

reply to post by infinite


you are completely right. we arent fighting an enemy as much as were fighting an ideal and if we cant provide them with something better then theyll turn to radicalism. and if you blow up there friends businesses and relatives then they arent going to stand with you.

Hearts and minds of the people dont mind what actually happens to bring a clear and swift victory for the forces. The Generals are retired they are as good as citizens and they have no weight behind them. Also another more important thing is that the military does not and will not carry out water boarding, It is the intelligence community that will try and carry out water boarding, for them it is a tool, for the military it would be against the codes and rules of military doctrine in most western countries.

Even by doing these things to captured and guilty terrorists, we are not loosing the high ground in humanitarian issues because firstly these terrorists are not our own citizens and they are also not being permanently harmed. But in countries like China and Myanmar, the government is tyrannical and is enslaving its own people (different ethnic groups and dissenters) into work camps and labor camps.

McCain and these retired military leaders have opposed torture for a very simple reason: if we present torture as a legitimate option we essentially give our enemies moral license to use it against our own troops. (Not that they might not anyway.)

Senator McCain has an unusually personal stake in it, having had the misfortune to see torture in practice up close and personal, unlike most of the people in the debate.

Originally posted by justanothergangster
im glad to see this happening. i just wish that the people detaining people would think about it like that. just because you have the authority to do something doesnt make it right. i could go antagonize someone into fighting me and put them in the hospital but i dont and why? because its not the right thing to do. what ever happened to having a conscience?

Bush & his Masters in the Rockerfella Family have no Conscience. They are Eletists, who have been taught down the ages, that they are somehow better than the regular folk & therefore are exempt from normal Human Laws.

Anything they do to us isn't wrong, because somehow they believe that our DNA is of lesser quality than theres, therefore they need no Conscience when dealing with us.

reply to post by justanothergangster

Fighting who? What? ----------------PC

I think people are wasting their breath on this issue, Torture has been around for a long long time and I don't see it ending anytime soon. Besides just because some on signs a piece of paper doesn't mean they will abide by it. Hell what you don't know won't hurt. They could be torturing some on right now and you'll never know it. If some on accuses them of torturing without evidence then all they have to do is deny, deny, deny.

reply to post by Rasputin13


Rasputin, I think that's a loathesome, ignorant, horrible thing to say. But what makes it worse, is that there may be truth to what you've said.

I wonder how a formal student of philosophy (who has studied and considered ethics) would respond.

I was having a conversation with a policeman friend of mine sometime last year. The issue of torture came up. I voice my opposition to hurting another human being for whatever cause, insisting that it was never the right thing to do. Then this liberal lefty friend of mine opined that he thought maybe sometimes it's the only way to get's what's required to do the more righteous thing (saving a child that only a [hypothetical] sonovabitch child molester knows the whereabouts of, for instance).

My policeman friend hasn't resorted to torturing anybody (he's not a detective, after all)...but it is a frustrating argument.

I guess my point is, I hate what you've said and I think the USA is a near-fascist bully...but maybe I'm naive.

F

(edited for a postscript)

PS: I was originally going to reply to you stating something like, "Yeah, I think my country (New Zealand) should be able to resort to torture, too. And maybe, I, as an individual, should have that right, too."

But as I wrote that draft, it didn't feel very...honest.



[edit on 16/12/07 by Fuggle]