Donald Trump is right about waterboarding!

a reply to: GD21D

Again, it's not torture and the people who are waterboarded still have three hots and a cot. They're still living and it only happened to a handful of terrorist and we got useful information from them.

With drones, innocent children are killed.

Ex-CIA chief defends waterboarding of al Qaeda leader

Former Clandestine Service head Jose Rodriguez defends "enhanced interrogation techniques" and questions the drone strike policy. Watch Lesley Stahl's interview on Sunday, April 29 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

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."

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.

www.cbsnews.com...

This is directly from the mouth of someone who was there.

He ended with this:

Rodriguez regrets the cancellation of his enhanced interrogation program by the current administration, accusing the White House of tying America's hands in the war on terror. "We don't capture anyone anymore Lesley...the default option of this administration has been to kill all prisoners. Take no prisoners," he tells Stahl. "The drones. How could it be more ethical to kill people rather than capture them?"

GREAT POINT!!

This is the sheer idiocy of this argument. Somehow capturing terrorist and waterboarding a select few is so bad that it's better to kill them along with innocent children with drone strikes. That makes no sense!

Simple question, do you want to become what you despise?

When we are as cruel as ISIS, how can we condemn them?

a reply to: neformore

Cruel????

What?? This isn't cruel. It was done to a handul of terrorist and we got information that saved lives.

What's cruel is this:



Using drones to drop bombs that kill innocent children so you can avoid capturing and detaining terrorist. With these drone strikes ISIS has gotten stronger and bolder when you look at Paris or Russia.

a reply to: neformore

That!!!

If to fight the monster we must become the monster, I'll pass. We can protect ourselves without resorting to methods that are of dubious effectiveness.

How the Hell can anyone not call waterboarding torture? It is cruel, and unusual, and is in direct contravention of the Geneva convention.

a reply to: neoholographic


I hear you, man. The incessant drone strikes and subsequent collateral damage turns my stomach.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: neformore

That!!!

If to fight the monster we must become the monster, I'll pass. We can protect ourselves without resorting to methods that are of dubious effectiveness.

How the Hell can anyone not call waterboarding torture? It is cruel, and unusual, and is in direct contravention of the Geneva convention.

It's amazing to me to see people on this board crying about waterboarding a handfull of terrorists that are still living but they ignore the fact that drone strikes have killed hundreds of innocent children!!

originally posted by: neoholographic

With drones, innocent children are killed.

You're creating a false equivalence between active combat operations and post combat operations. Furthermore, this doesn't even address the morality of combat drone operations. Somehow you've automatically concluded that everyone agrees about the acceptability of drone strikes. Completely different issue that you've included but completely glossed over the intrinsic details involved within.

Again, it's not torture and the people who are waterboarded still have three hots and a cot. They're still living and it only happened to a handful of terrorist and we got useful information from them.

Apparently, you, like Jose Rodriguez, just don't get it. Go back and read the Geneva Convention. Read up on why those standards are in place.

What's funny is that the moment U.S. service members are tortured you guys will be heading the train screaming bloody murder about how the GC has been violated by an opposing force. It's called being a hypocrite.

a reply to: neformore


Ummm...certainly not across from the same table that the admin and John McCain used...surely you couldn't bring yourself to sit there...?




YouSir

originally posted by: spinalremain
a reply to: neoholographic


I hear you, man. The incessant drone strikes and subsequent collateral damage turns my stomach.

EXACTLY!!

How dare anyone cry about waterboarding a handful of terrorists when drones sent by our Government is doing this to children:



The terrorists who were waterboarded are still getting three hots and a cot, the innocent children are dead!

I'm really confused by the theme of this post... You're trying to say that waterboarding is ok, because in relation to killing innocent people and children with drone strikes waterboarding is relatively tame? How about we don't do either?

Man, torture is torture. Waterboarding is tame in relation to some torture methods since if done correctly it doesn't result in death, but all torture is meant to break someone mentally and emotionally. Unless you're a psychopath, injuring or damaging someone is not the intended result. Chinese water torture doesn't leave marks, you can electrocute someone without damaging them, compressive asphyxia doesn't physically damage someone.

Both of the topics you've mentioned pretty much make american's out to be hypocritical monsters, so i'd say abolish both.

a reply to: neoholographic

The hell I do.

Drones are just as wrong as waterboarding. So don't even try to go there with me. Don't even.

originally posted by: buster2010
a reply to: schuyler

Someone who is waterboarded has the sensation that they are drowning, but they aren't. There is no physical harm to them at all. Yet people call waterboarding "torture."

Have it done to you and let's see if you change your mind.
Even the Nazis learned you get no real information by using torture to keep doing so is just idiotic.

Exactly, on both points. As for deaths, there have been. My understanding is that military training had fatalities, CIA have dispatched a few people, Guantanamo had fatalities.
In WW2 Americans executed japanese military for waterboarding American soldiers, though it doesn't seem to be clear that the deaths were from waterboarding alone. Basically it is a crime to do that, the use of it being outlawed long before...and it was used extensively before being outlawed, even by police forces.
Trump talks shiite, and considers nothing that comes out of his cakehole...did he consider that the likes of IS might just do the same thing to say innocent Americans, and military they capture, of course he didn't, and there seems to be evidence that they are doing just that already, tit for tat, who'd have thought! well Trump didn't anyway.

Thing is, God knows what goes on if no one knows about it, but it's a different world now, we know much more about real war, not the glossy stuff from not so long ago, we know that air strikes are far from 'surgical' and that includes drones, missiles, (Baghdad video) and the reality of 'minimal collateral damage' which usually means X number of innocent people dead, to terrorists you could count on one hand.

Yet and all the OP talks peculiarly about waterboarding like it's kindergarten stuff, Trump actually said he would do "much worse". What then, the rack?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

You said it mate. This argument IS idiotic. Torture is against the Geneva Conventions

Then why has the US been using 'torture' since world war 1 ?

Did it in ww2.korea,VIETNAM, right up to CLinton and his 'black sites' to the current administration.

As long as it's either in international waters, or a foreign country it does not matter.

It only matter when a 'republican' suggests it.

For cripes sake.

All the snip GW took. ALL the crap Trump is currently taking.

It was under Kennedy and JOHNSON both D's did the CIA and torture become an American political talking point.

a reply to: neo96

...and it was wrong then, too, neo.

If you utilize the same sort of tactics as those we so, rightfully, despise, how are we morally superior, again?

The fight needs fighting. I'm not arguing that...but the means are as important as the end. MHO, of course.

Sometimes there is no higher road. War it not pretty. Hate is not an easy thing to deal with. To me, waterboarding could bring a result. Killing an entire village....nope. If a civilian was killed in an airstrike to save 100 soldiers or citizens that is a hard call not to make but deal with.

You have to wonder if you had a man who you suspect has knowledge about a bomb plot in your city, and you knew the threat was credible, you have only hours or less to find it, and this uncooperative man was the only option you have... Would you be willing to use torture?

How far would you go?

a reply to: seagull

Some people call it wrong. That's their prerogative.

However I don't lose any sleep over it. Especially when it comes to 'true believers of ALLAH'.

That goes around cutting peoples heads, off that is when they are not bombing the hell out of someone else. That go around marrying little girls. Then raping them.

I know people like to think we are 'better', but when it comes to REAL American history. That is chalked full of devilish little details.

How else is one to fight religious 'batsnip' crazy zealots.

The only thing that upsets me. Is how people think 'torture' is worse than what those Islamofascists do on a daily basis.

originally posted by: ausername
You have to wonder if you had a man who you suspect has knowledge about a bomb plot in your city, and you knew the threat was credible, you have only hours or less to find it, and this uncooperative man was the only option you have... Would you be willing to use torture?

How far would you go?

Well no, of course we wouldn't use torture, because hard data and research have shown that it's ineffective. So...if you know he's going to give you bad information or tell you anything to avoid the torture, why would you do it? That doesn't make any sense.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: neo96

...and it was wrong then, too, neo.

If you utilize the same sort of tactics as those we so, rightfully, despise, how are we morally superior, again?

The fight needs fighting. I'm not arguing that...but the means are as important as the end. MHO, of course.

Not only that, but we can't even have this debate if some who enter into it are under the ridiculous assumption that the US is trying to abolish terrorism. This is the problem. The US is creating terrorism for multiple financial reasons, so we have to stop with the naiveté that the US is fighting some war on moral high ground.

Make no mistake, there is a very disgusting reason these drones wipe out more than their intended target.