Torture? I went through worse in basic training

So because we may have made some mistakes in the past about upholding the laws, we should allow torture now and forever?

When the japanese waterboarded during WW2, they were prosecuted so there is some precident for upholding the Geneva Convention against those who wish to use this type of torture.

Yet 2 out of 3 of those same individuals talked during simple question and answer interviews as I've posted before with SOURCE information.

The catch here is that if the government is going to apply American law to these people, they must also apply American rights to them. Why do you think bush had so many foreign prisons? His thought was that since they're not on American soil, American laws would not apply. The problem with that thinking is that American soil is legally brought with us (ie US embassies, military bases, etc..). He was trying to work on a loophole.

Just curious but what if your family, wife, friends, etc.. were suspected of being a terrorist and waterboarded. Would you be ok with that? Would you understand that, that would have to be done in the name of freedom?

[edit on 1-5-2009 by jfj123]

Well I'm a US citizen and I don't believe it kept 1 person safe. In fact, I believe in the larger scheme of things, it's made us and ESPECIALLY our soldiers, less safe.

reply to post by jfj123

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After 29 pages I think it is safe to assume that you and everybody you are debating against are not seeing eye to eye on this topic. Your statements lead me to believe that you think the US goes into "x" country and starts taking everyday joe's off the street to using enhanced interrogation techniques to find information.

Others are stating that these interrogation techniques are only used on those who are known to have information (ex. captured high level members of terror organizations). There is a vast amount of space between these two ideas.

Your idea of who these techniques are being used upon would mean that my family and I could at some point. My idea of who these techniques would be used upon would not include my family and me because we are not high ranking members of a terror organization. The information needed for us to come to any sort of agreement is simply not available and that is where these major differences in opinion are coming from.

On another point the military does train select soldiers to resist certain interrogation techniques. This must be extremely difficult but yes it is training and soldiers can stop the training at the risk of failing the training. Often times if you fail training at that level you will not be offered the chance to redo that training, they will simply pick somebody else. What I would like to point out is something that we have been missing. Soldiers are put through this training so that in the event that they are captured they will better be able to resist the interrogations that are going to come. They are trained in this way because they know the possibilities of the job that they are doing same as the high level members of these terror organizations. When someone gives someone the materials to plant a bomb or is working out plans to attack people in the US they know the consequences of what they are doing just like I know the consequences of robbing a bank.

I heartily disagree with you about basic training being an equivalent to torture. I managed to graduate from basic training with no trouble at all. As a matter of fact it was the easiest thing I've ever done. It was a piece of cake compared to surviving on the streets as an unwanted teenager.

That is just the problem.... you would admit to being a "high ranking" terrorist if you were waterboarded long enough.

Even if you are the resilient type, you would start admitting to all manner of things once your wife or child was subjected to waterboarding or worse.

Then your confession would be used to justify the torture (as you are now an admitted "high ranking terrorist"), and the cycle of depravity and injustice will be complete.

*If you have to torture someone in order to save my life - please don't.

[edit on 6-5-2009 by Exuberant1]

reply to post by Hazelnut

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Basic training was not exactly like torture it's exactly what the title says, the basic training required to introduce you to the Army and prepare you for further training. It's quite easy today. It is much easy today than it was so 5, 10 or 20 years ago. The training that resembles torture would be SERE training (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape).

reply to post by Exuberant1

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This is just the type of thinking that I am talking about. People are not being pulled off the streets and interrogated using tactics like water boarding. Often times when some average Joe is detained for planting a bomb or shooting at coalition forces they are going to be held for a few weeks or months and then released.

The people who are getting interrogated with tactics like water boarding are known to be in a leadership position. There are high priority target lists of which military intelligence tracks and when they find out where they are they send a unit to get them. If they person they are tracking is a vary high priority target then a SF unit might be used to get them.

The US is not going to waste time and resources shipping some average Joe to a secret prison. There are prisons in country for those guys. Interrogation tactics like water boarding are most likely not used for finding out new information. It is most likely used for information that they know the detainee has and they are looking for details.

reply to post by platosallegory

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When you enlisted in the service you made an agreement not to talk about the type of training you received. The last time some one complained the training got changed and more and more soldiers are getting killed because it is not as hard and ruthless as it is suppose to be. It was not torture but conditioning that had to take place because of the environment that you might go into. other countries do not have the respect and courtesy that our country has enforced about human rights violations so we had to train our soldiers to compete against something that they have not been through or that MSM has never shown. So i feel that the pain and training i went through was terrible training. My Marine Corp parents have told me stories of their marine corp and how it has completely wussed out since then. I went and was horribly upset at the poor training that i received compared to the amount of constant training and memory setting that the old Marines know and love. So what i am saying is you did sign your life to the gov. they could legally do what ever they wanted until the contract ended. Be glad that you got to experience something that most do not.

Ok, but I managed to figure out how to suvive, evade, resist and escape without a training manual or instructor 20 years before I joined the Army. Real life experience versus "tactical maneuvers". I received my OJT when I was a little girl. You don't know what torture is until you've lived through the pain, the degradation, humiliation and trauma of having your existence depend on a lunatic's fantasy.

So the title of this post is the most ridiculous thing I've read on ATS to date.

reply to post by Hazelnut

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I am not going to belittle the personal life experiences of anyone. The truth is that life for many is tough and unforgiving. Due to the way our society is structured life is much harder for some than it is for others. I personally have a lot to say about that and I could only hope that things will get better with time. The only thing we can do is to take our life experiences, get what we can out of them and use them to help better ourselves personally.

SERE training is designed to train soldiers for certain situations that they might face. If people can take experiences that they have gone through prior to training and use them to help get through training and other situations then that can only add to the success of a team.

So now that you've had your turn to establish what a super cool ultra-macho dude you are how about you back it up with a youtube video of you undergoing an hour or so of water-boarding?
Make sure, however, to replace the reassuring thought "ten thousand other marines/seals have done this and survived, with the thought, a dozen other prisoners have been exposed to this and died.
I thought not
Grow up Rambo

If you only saw what the Iraqi's did to their prisoners, water boarding isn't anything. I mean the Iraqi Army, PDK, Iraqi Police, etc... They usually talk because they know what's coming if they don't.

Does anyone remember who said this phrase or where it came from? "People sleep soundly at night because there are others out there doing the stuff they are afraid to think about." Something similar to it.