Bush: Yeah, we signed off on Torture. So What?

Originally posted by Alxandro
Hatred for Bush aside, think about it.
So freakin' what!

International law does not apply to terrorists that don't know how to play by the book and hide behind innocent women and children, so quit being such a freakin' sympathizer.

Can you name just one indiividual that has died from waterboarding?


... didn't think so.

Yes, I can. Does that matter?

[edit on 12-4-2008 by Maxmars]

Originally posted by Maxmars

Originally posted by Alxandro
Hatred for Bush aside, think about it.
So freakin' what!

International law does not apply to terrorists that don't know how to play by the book and hide behind innocent women and children, so quit being such a freakin' sympathizer.

Can you name just one indiividual that has died from waterboarding?


... didn't think so.

Yes.

'Play book'? 'sympathizer'? Interesting choice of words. Describe a terrorist for me will you? How do we know one when we see one?

reply to post by Alxandro


First off, I don't hate him. He is still a human being. Its taken me a long time to realize his humanity. He believes (for the most part anyway) he is acting in the best interest of this country. However, that also involves his cronies and business partners that benefit off their best interests.

Secondly, the US does not follow international law. If that were the case, we would have needed a UN mandate to invade Iraq. We didn't wait.

If we did follow international law, and treaties that we signed, maybe we should be brought up on war crimes simply for the act of torture itself:

Part 1, Article 1 and the US Reservations of the UN Convention Against Torture: The term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession

source

Did you notice the key word person. It doesn't matter if they're a "terrorist" because they're still a person, first and foremost. Our founding fathers were called terrorists by the British, but we call them freedom fighters. You see, its all a matter of perspective.

Any intelligence given under duress is going to be faulty. I would lie like no other just so the torture stops. So would any other sane person.

Don't tell me its effective, because its not.

International law does not apply to terrorists that don't know how to play by the book and hide behind innocent women and children, so quit being such a freakin' sympathizer.

If you had bother to do the research, some of these detainees were held on shoddy evidence and were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. That does not make them terrorists.

You're naive to think we're doing the world a favor by torturing people, guilty or not. By torturing ONE man we create ONE THOUSAND in his place.

How would you like to be tortured? Would you enjoy me burning you with hot coals? How about simulating drowning? How about electro-shock therapy? How about being attacked by german shepherds?

No? Then don't say its ok for anyone else to go through that.

We are supposedly human, we should start acting like it. Civilized my ass.

Can you name just one indiividual that has died from waterboarding?

I can name multiple innocents who have been tortured indefinitely for crimes they did not commit.



Waterboarding demonstration:








[edit on 4/12/2008 by biggie smalls]

reply to post by biggie smalls


Biggie; This is not so much a response as a point to add - many don't realize this

If while you are water boarding someone, you can make out words or what they are saying as they struggle, you're not doing it right.

Think about that. If they can answer - you're not doing it right.

reply to post by biggie smalls


Be that as it may, torture still works.
You knew it was being done, why so surprised now that it's official?

reply to post by Maxmars


The detainee is not supposed to talk when they're being tortured. They keep drowning them till they start to choke, then the [torturers] stop. They ask a few questions, and if the [tortured] doesn't answer the way the [torturers] want, the torture continues.

Do you see the problem here? People are going to make up the most ridiculous things just so they will stop being tortured. It doesn't matter if they're innocent, nor does it matter if they're guilty. Either way, they get tortured.

Add that to the list of US human rights violations. Who are we to criticize the Chinese for Tibet when we have skeletons in our own closet, some not even put away yet.

Originally posted by Alxandro
reply to post by biggie smalls

 

Be that as it may, torture still works.
You knew it was being done, why so surprised now that it's official?

Torture works?

Really?

Do have evidence to support this?

I'm pretty sure that if someone were pulling your fingernails out, you'd tell them whatever they wanted to hear just to get them to stop, whether real or imagined.

It's also been proved pretty conclusively that torture doesn't work - information gained by the use of torture is nearly always worthless.

reply to post by biggie smalls


Perhaps I was too cryptic. I meant precisely the same thing as you stated. "Torture first, talk later' is the methodology being carried out in the 'name of civilization' here - there changing the paradigm - in order to save my way of life - they making me (by virtue of being a citizen) complicit in their patently criminal behavior, but they deny the people the authority to say STOP and have it made so.

What will stop this other than the unlikely event where all the "torturers" refuse to carry out the torture?

Originally posted by Alxandro

Be that as it may, torture still works.

No it really doesn't. It works if you want shoddy intelligence. No testimony under torture is usable in a court of law. With the patriot act, maybe that's a different story.

Torture court cases

Supreme Court case, LAKHDAR BOUMEDIENE, et al vs GEORGE BUSH

The Government broadly contends that Congress may grant
the Executive almost unchecked authority to imprison people
it labels as “enemy combatants” without ever charging them
with (or presenting evidence of) offenses and without allow-
ing any court to conduct an independent inquiry into the
legality of their detentions. Petitioners, on the other hand,
ask only that the Court enforce the structural guarantee of the
Suspension Clause that an independent court be allowed to make a meaningful determination of the legality of Executive
detention, except in those extraordinary circumstances where
Congress has lawfully suspended habeas corpus. Petitioners
do not ask this Court to determine whether they have been
lawfully imprisoned; they merely ask that they be allowed to
seek federal court review of the legality of their detention in
habeas proceedings required by the Constitution.

If you don't bother to read the above links, why don't you read the national defense intelligence college's conclusions on torture.

You knew it was being done, why so surprised now that it's official?

I am not surprised as its been "official" for years now. We were torturing before 911, but not on the same scale as we are now. I can't pay attention to the countless war crimes this administration has been subject to. There's too many to count.




[edit on 4/12/2008 by biggie smalls]

Originally posted by budski

Originally posted by Alxandro
reply to post by biggie smalls

 

Be that as it may, torture still works.
You knew it was being done, why so surprised now that it's official?

Torture works?

Really?

Do have evidence to support this?

I'm pretty sure that if someone were pulling your fingernails out, you'd tell them whatever they wanted to hear just to get them to stop, whether real or imagined.

It's also been proved pretty conclusively that torture doesn't work - information gained by the use of torture is nearly always worthless.

In support of your argument may I add,

Unequivocally - torture alone does not work. It must be combined with psychologically controlled interfacing with the subject.

IN FACT

"psychologically controlled interfacing with the subject" DOES work without torture - it's just not as fast as the trauma-based psychological rape method made possible by torture.. (and I contend - those connected with it by 'vocation' are guilty of a sadistic attachment to the process)

This is an article that lays out EXACTLY why intelligence gained from torture is faulty.

ANALYSIS
Torture does not yield reliable information.
Nearly every torture survivor at the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT), when subjected to torture, confessed to a crime they did not commit, gave up extraneous information, or supplied names of the innocent to their torturers. It is a source of great shame for them, who tell us they would have said anything to stop the pain. Such extraneous information distracts, rather than supports, valid investigations.

Military interrogators know that torture does not work.
Military interrogators know torture produces false information and wastes valuable resources. A report commissioned by the Intelligence Science Board[1] concludes that painful and coercive interrogation techniques hinder the ability to get solid, factual information. Coercive techniques have been abandoned by the military because evidence suggests that intelligence successes are a result of the verbal acumen of our field interrogators, not the use of torture.

Torture is not used only against the guilty.
The torture survivors CVT serves are living testimony that once used, torture becomes a fishing expedition to find information. It perverts the system which, seeking shortcuts to the hard work of investigation, relies increasingly on torture. Whenever a democratic government has allowed torture for rare instances, torture has become widespread and routine.

Source


All the above information comes from the fas.org source I mentioned in the last post.

Originally posted by goosdawg

And one wonders why these indifferent, arrogant, puppet criminals show zero respect towards the vast majority of people they are Constitutionally bound to serve?






[edit on 11-4-2008 by goosdawg]

...and PROTECT!

reply to post by budski


Then why are they able to capture even more of these well known terror suspects using the information obtained during the torture process?

The argument of "getting them to say what you want to hear" does not apply.

Don't be so arrogant to think these terrorist think like you or I because they don't. They have a different mind set so whatever you think may best for them, they may not.
They don't want any semblance of civility, whatsoever!

Btw, take all the fingernails you want, just leave my head attached to my body, if it's not too much to ask.

Originally posted by Alxandro
Hatred for Bush aside, think about it.
So freakin' what!

International law does not apply to terrorists that don't know how to play by the book and hide behind innocent women and children, so quit being such a freakin' sympathizer.

Can you name just one indiividual that has died from waterboarding?


... didn't think so.

So in your own words, you just called America a terroristic nation? I couldn't agree more.

I'm glad we agree on something.

Only because they do in to their own in Iraq and now we do it to them and they do it to us does not make it right. It not about who can be the best sardistic system verses another and they get some joy of that like some game. Its all wrong and the Americans should have at least employed basic human rights which they are so dearly dying for by sending 4,000 of their own soldiers to their death for another countries freedom of that very human way of life. It's all a contradiction, it was a contradition that the Saudi's got a quick ride back home by plane withou question and a contradiction that the Americans are helping build the Middle East's tallest buildings in the world like democracy and Sharia law are friends all of a sudden with the Russians saying to Iran, 'here we give you Nuclear capabilities too, you are in full trust since next door the Americans are at war with your Neighbours'.

Its all crazy like they are asking for WW3 on purpose.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


Look I dont like Bush at ALL,BUT I agree with what he and the government is doing to PROTECT AMERICAN CITIZENS-meaning US!When I see post like this it makes me just ask myself"Why are we bashing the protection of our country?"Have we as U.S. citizens become so full of ourselves that we can really condem ACTS TAKEN TO PROTECT US?!I can understand non-u.s. citizens bashing our tatics,but our own people?Are you from the U.S. Detective?I know some of the responses came from U.S. citizens(granted I didnt read past the first few).

I DO NOT agree with alot of what our government does.but Im not some anti-government liberal fundalmentalist who thinks everything my government does is a "conspiracy"or "war crimes".Wouldnt you want a potential terrorist tortured by ANY MEANS if it meant keeping you-or more importantly YOUR FAMILY SAFE???!Its not like we are doing this to our own citizens,it seems everytime in history we have a "controversal"war or do certain NECISSARY TATICS TO PROTECT OUR OWN PEOPLE we have a certain domestic group joining other international groups condeming what we do because we must.......could you do better to protect us?Could you find a better way to extract information that is CRITICAL to our countries security?If the terrorist did not tell you the info YOU KNEW they had,would you simply give up and hope for the best?I THINK NOT.

I think some people will bash ANYTHING Bush does,I dont like him either,but your not being mature and rational,or fair to do so just because you do not like him.So I say the same thing-"Yea we signed off on torture,SO WHAT?!"Why dont we worry about the real things that are a problem in our country and society rather than bickering over things done to protect us.

-JKrog

reply to post by Alxandro


That's a bold statement, although I suspect it is based on opinion rather than evidence.

If you have evidence to support your assertion that torture works and that terrorists have been caught as a direct consequence of troture, then please provide it so that the rest of us can "learn" from what you say.

If you have no evidence then your assertion is without foundation, and you may even be guilty of a terminological inexactitude.
(thnx winston for that one )

reply to post by CX


So, you think if we do not do it, the insurgents will cease to do it?

In Iraq, and Afghanistan, we currently find ourselves fighting unconventional warfare, unconventional warfare calls for unconventional measures.

Get over it.

Torture does work, but not toward the ends that are generally given to excuse it. As an intelligence gathering tool, it is nearly worthless for reasons already well described. Torture’s main use is as a means to intimidate a populace. It’s a threat hung over everyone’s head that’s meant to terrorize them into obedience and compliance. (That’s right; I just said that torture is terrorism) That’s why the use of torture must be made public, because it’s a psychological weapon aimed at the public. Do what we say, or get what they got. It’s an unmistakable sign of tyranny, and anyone who dismisses or excuses it is complicit in it’s evil.

I’m really not at all surprised that the Bush crime family has come right out and admitted to using torture, after all, they’ve been rubbing the use of it on USA citizens right here at home in our faces for almost a decade, though the truth is that it’s been used in much the same way since long before 911. I hold out little hope that the criminal elite will suffer any true justice in this life, but it really doesn’t matter. They will face perfect justice in the end, along side all of their supportive, excuse making bobbleheads.

edit for addition

[edit on 12-4-2008 by resistor]

Originally posted by CX
This guy and his administration never ceases to amaze me.

I'd never wish the use of torture on anyone, friend or foe, but next time i hear of one of our guys having been tortured, beheaded or whatever, i really don't think i will be able to feel as disgusted as i used to.

If we do it and think it's fine, who are we to moan when they do it to our guys?

Bush is a prize tool, i swear to God that guy is a monkey that has been put in a suit and strategicaly shaved!

CX.

Yeah, cause waterboarding among other rough interrigation techniques is the same as chopping off peoples heads for sometimes no other reason than they are a different religion/race. I don't believe in torture as a meens to gather intelligence either but cmon, your not gonna feel bad when some reporter gets his head chopped off just because our gov't hurt some legitimate bad guy. Coo Coo