Waterboarding consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face to force the inhalation of water into the lungs. This makes the person believe they are going to drown.
2007-11-09 08:03:11 · 21 answers · asked by sam f 4 in Politics & Government ➔ Other - Politics & Government
to artboy:
no the question is "is it torture" because if you think it's torture, then we can't do it. Because we don't torture people. So, if it's torture, we're guilty of international law every time we do it. THAT's the meaning of the question.
2007-11-09 08:19:51 · update #1
Actually they put a plastic bag over your head so you can't inhale water. It gives the sensation of drowning. IT IS TORTURE!
The problem with waterboarding, like all forms of torture, is that information it provides is rarely correct. Most people will say anything to have the torture stop.
When did we become an uncivilized nation? In the America I was raised in we were proud that we didn't stoop to the level of our enemy. We held ourselves as a 'Shiny City on the Hill' and refused to get dirty. Now we torture. There are other ways to get a confession.
What if just one innocent person was forced into a false confession because of torture? People who back using torture won't answer that question. They'll say, well the enemy drives planes into our building and beheads people. They do, and they are our enemy. We should hunt them down, TRY THEM, and, if convicted, execute them. But we should not forget our values and morals just because the enemy is evil.
By the way, saying if your family was kidnapped wouldn't you want to torture someone to find them. Yes I would. But I wouldn't be exactly impartial now would I. If someone attacks my child I would want them killed slowly and painfully, but the US Constitution says that I cannot. We have laws for a reason! It's funny how Conservatives want a strict application of the 2nd amendment but not on anywhere else.
The goal of the terrorists on 9/11 was to make us so afraid that we changed our way of life. Guess what, they succeeded. We have allowed them to win and it makes me sick. Instead of chasing them to Afghanistan (where they hid) and forcing them from their caves, we have taken our foot of their necks and started a war in Iraq (who had nothing to do with 9/11). We have become villians in the eyes of much of the world because of our new policy of pre-emptive war and condoning torture.
I'm proud to be an America, but I'm disgusted at our behavior in recent years. I want to know that my America is a moral nation again.
(By the way, isn't it odd that the 'Compassionate Christians' are the ones that condone torture?)
2007-11-09 08:27:36 · answer #1 · answered by Downriver Dave 5 · 1⤊ 5⤋
The problem that you raise is a legal one, not a common sense one. We are trying to figure out what the legal definition of "torture" is. To any reasonable person waterboarding is CLEARLY torture. Just as to any reasonable person oral s** is covered by the term s**ual relations. But lawyers will certainly get caught up in whether the law says that waterboarding is torture. This is the problem. Are we dealing with reality or legal definitions?
2007-11-09 16:38:41 · answer #2 · answered by Matt W 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Moot question.
The US Congress has passed laws on torture but has failed to define what torture is.
If they wish to ban waterboarding, they need only provide a definition which would include the practice.
But if they did that, tehy could no longer grandstand about whether a practice was or was not torture and who agrees or disagrees.
And neither could you.
2007-11-12 14:48:32 · answer #3 · answered by RTO Trainer 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
All I can think of is excuses, not reasons.
The problem is simple, America do not torture or so it has pleaded. If water-boarding is torture then we need to find a way to either find an excuse to use it in a way that is not defined as torture or just change the definition of torture. Or maybe use reason and NOT TORTURE.
2007-11-09 16:13:28 · answer #4 · answered by Jose R 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Don't care if you consider it torture or not. As a valid interrogation technique to be used only in EXTREME circumstance, I say go for it. Torture in ANY circumstance is when it leads to irreparable damage or death to the prisoner. THAT I don't advocate. And, yes, I recognize that the potential for death does exist with waterboarding, et al, but that's true of a football game too. So don't bother with that argument.
2007-11-09 17:26:39 · answer #5 · answered by kathy_is_a_nurse 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Of course it's torture. No one would think it isn't. The question is not whether it's torture – the question is how long we're going to put up with the politically correct police who insist that we coddle every last known person who would rather die than let the United States continue to exist.
We're going to be digging ourselves out from this "let everyone do what they'd like" QUAGMIRE we've created for years to come. Enough is enough! Let torture be the deterrent it's meant to be.
And no, I wouldn't want it done to me . . . but then again, I'm not planning on doing anything that would put me in that position in the first place.
2007-11-09 16:14:20 · answer #6 · answered by artboy34 3 · 2⤊ 2⤋
Whether you think it's torture or not it apparently works or they wouldn't do it. I know there are people out there that think it can't work but if it doesn't why are they doing it? It seems to me they wouldn't waste their time. Besides, to me torture consists of doing bodily harm. Breaking bones, deprivation of food or water for long periods, electrical devices, cutting off body parts, pliers etc. Water boarding merely scares the bejesus out of them. It's not torture.
2007-11-10 23:07:14 · answer #7 · answered by rick b 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
You probably consider yelling at our enemy's torture as well. I guess the best thing is to not even bother trying to get information from these terrorists that might save a few American lives right ? Is it so hard for you to realize that there are people out there willing to do ANYTHING they can to kill Americans? Time to get off your high horse and come back to the real world.
2007-11-09 17:56:57 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 1⤋
Maybe it is torture however the question before the nation is should waterboarding be an acceptable form of interrogation of a future event from a known terrorist to prevent a catastrophe
2007-11-09 16:08:47 · answer #9 · answered by ken 6 · 2⤊ 2⤋
You know what sucks? Not getting the information you need and then having a nuke go off. As long as we are waterboarding for relevant information, it is not torture- its interrogation.
I feel very little pity for people who want to kill me. For the most part, people who are waterboarded want to.
2007-11-09 16:46:38 · answer #10 · answered by TSSA! 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋