Are you for, or against waterboarding? Please explain the reason why you are for or against it!?

Question

Torture" is one of many current topics of significance that have been abandoned to the left. Leftist commentators have been allowed to set the terms, make the definitions, and generally run the argument without much in the way of serious opposition or debate.'

Answer 1

I can't say I am for water boarding...but the "it is ineffectual' debate is lost on me.

I mean...are you just going to ask the terrorist to play nice and spill all their deep dark secrets....?

Are you going to make sure they are fed Fillet Mignon and Chardonnay...?

How about 800 count sheets and down comforters..?

There comes a point where the person you are interrogating, has to be uncomfortable....and too many of those who lean left...think that ANY means of coercion are torturous...

We are fighting a war, we need no more protection of the enemy, at the expense of our fighting men and women.

Answer 2

I am against anything which needs an innocent sounding euphemism, such as "harsh interrogation technique".

The most reliable intelligence you will ever get from an enemy is when he or she doesn't know they're giving it, correct? If they are unaware they are divulging the info to 3rd parties, they have no reason to lie about that information.

Conversely, whenever you hear about someone being "waterboarded" or "harshly interrogated", it's never AFTER the "police/soldiers" have gotten a traditonal statement (like police do) from whomever they suspect of terrorist connections. If the information doesn't jibe with that given by others, then increased stress is mandated, of course. The second visit to tell the suspect his story didn't check out will be enough to increase the stress, simply because America now has a reputation for its willingness to engage in torture.

And, as I've said numerous times, torture of any kind does not produce reliable intelligence. If you beat on someone or stress someone or deprive someone of sleep long enough, they will tell you anything you want to hear, but that doesn't make it true. And you also give MAJOR recruiting tools to al Qaida in Iraq with every story about abuse of rights and civil liberties (you, know, that "democracy" we're supposed to be over there "spreading") of Iraqi citizens at the hands of the despotic, oil greedy Americans. Every time some mother is man-handled by a soldier who doesn't understand how grievous an offense it is to touch a woman who is not in your own family in Iraq, every time you imprison an Iraqi student for months with no legal representation while telling him how lucky he is to be living in a "free" Iraq now, all that does is drive MORE idealistic young Iraqi men and women into al Qaida recruiting camps, guaranteeing a steadily more expensive "War on Terror" for many, many years to come.

EDIT to Lilliput: Why does it always have to be one extreme or the other? Why, if someone is against flensing (peeling the flesh from the body while the victim is still alive), do you just assume they MUST be into rocking Osama to sleep every night with a mug of hot cocoa? Do you REALLY see things so immaturely?

Answer 3

Against.
1. Not convinced of it's efficacy. Yes, they'll talk. They'll say anything to make it stop. You can't trust that testimony.
2. It has historically been a crime, and the US has prosecuted our own people and enemy troops who engaged in this practice.
3. The ticking time bomb scenario you hear is crap. If a jihadist really knows where the nuke or even regular bomb is that will go off in a few hours, he only has to hold out and/or lie til then. All the torture in the world won't get it out of a determined terrorist.
4. The psychological effect on the torturer is significant. We shouldn' expose our own people to that.
5. Other regimes (besides terrorists) will now say it is okay to use on our guys, and we won't be able to protest effectively.
6. You think it will stop with terrorists? Think again. If waterboarding isn't torture, then why not use it here at home? I don't trust the government to know when to stop.
7. Damn it, we're supposed to be the GOOD GUYS! The terrorists are the ones who torture and behead, not us. We're supposed to be better than that. I didn't serve in the military just to make sure my countrymen could live...even dictatorships allow most of their people to live, I joined to let them live free and live as an example to the world. If we condone torture, why was I defending you?

==Edit==
Yes, I read that same editorial, and it was crap. First off, the author uses a definition of torture that has been thoroughly discredited, and he skips around from straw man to straw man without actually supporting any of his arguments. JR Dunn was it? By his definition, the idea of torture loses all meaning, and basically doesn't exists at all. I wouldn't let that man be my notary public if that is the quality of his writing.

==Edit 2==
Also, I have had the privilage of knowing many interrogators, both police and military, and without exception every single one of them has told me that torture just isn't necessary. The only 2 ways to get reliable information are for them not to know you're listening, as the gentleman below said, or to get your captive to trust you, believe that you really are looking out for them, and that you are the only one who they can turn to. It takes time, but it works. Don't believe me? Watch some documentaries or shows like "The First 48" where they interrogate murder suspects. They give them soda, tell them they understand, talk to them for hours, try and see things from their perspective, talk about things they have in common, and guess what? It WORKS. No electrodes to the nads, no waterboarding. People are social animals, even jihadists/hirabists. They want to talk to you. They want to be heard.

Answer 4

You know if I thought that any form of torture would result in the saving of just one American life I would be all for it, but it doesn't. I believe that deprivation probably works best because it does not cause pain and the person being deprived feels that he can hold out longer than the person doing the depriving. You know like not allowing sleep or darkness but I don't know.
I know that if it were me and someone was causing me pain I would tell them whatever they wanted to hear and if I was being deprived of sleep or rest I would feel that I could withstand this as long as it took.

Answer 5

Waterboarding is torture, and as such, I'm against it.

Waterboarding has been used since the Spanish Inquisition, up through Stalin, Pol Pot, and now very likely the United States. Rather than being "simulated drowning", it IS drowning, as water if forced directly into the nostrils of one's upside down head, forcing first the sinuses to fill and then, inch by inch, the trachea and then the lungs.

That IS waterboarding. You cannot deny that this is what waterboarding is and how it is done.

If you choose to view this as something OTHER than torture, you are without a soul or a lick of sense.

Listen to military counterterrorism expert Malcolm Nance (click on "Listen Now")...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15844677

Read what Malcolm Nance has to say...
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/10/waterboarding-is-torture-perio/#c000929

And if you don't know who Malcolm Nance is, read this...
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/authors/malcolm-nance/bio/

Answer 6

Waterboarding is torture and it is illegal. It is also unconstitutional.

If we are still a nation of laws, waterboarding should not take place.

There is one thing you can detect in every single person who tries to rationalize torture; they are cowards.

Answer 7

Water boarding is a form of deprivation....
Is questioning a terror suspect better than other methods?You better pack your suit case and plan on spending a long time questioning "someone" The only thing you may do is annoy the hell out of them. By then there terrorist buddies have entered the US and killed thousands of innocent people. Try water boarding you wont kill them and you just may get the answers to those questions. To those who disagree answer me this question and honestly your wife and children are being held captive and about to be murdered. You have a man in your custody who knows where they are. How far would you go to get the answers you need to save them? Would you use any method to put that man into submission and force him to answer or would you give him a koran a prayer rug and a nice meal and ask him nicely if he wouldn't mind helping you out just this once please.....

Answer 8

Ask McCain.He could tell you a story or two about torture.

Answer 9

America’s own intelligence experts have said that torture is not only useless, but actually counterproductive because it often causes time and resources to be wasted following the false “leads” made up by those who are being tortured.

Answer 10

I heard it worked in less than 2 minutes on Khalid (?), especially because a CIA woman was present
I think you can't hogtie capabilities, but they should have to vet the use of extreme measures for extreme circumstances