who here believes a) that Waterboarding is not torture and b) that either way Bush did not order it?

Answer 1

Yes it is, and thankfully Bush said go ahead. And if certain wimpy liberal politicians hadn't cut funding and support to the now inefficient intelligence agencies it wouldn't be necessary now.

Answer 2

Gee, I am glad that you feel so pleased with yourself up there on the moral high-ground. Too bad we cannot ask the American office workers who had to jump out of the World Trade Towers to avoid fire what they think about those poor terrorists being made a little uncomfortable. They had a long a horrible plunge to certain death. Some probably had enough time as they fell to answer this question.

There is no easy decision to make when you are facing an enemy that does not fight by any rules. Ask any street-fighter. You cannot follow the Marquess of Queensberry rules if your opponent will use a baseball bat with nails in it. Just as in that case, if you are not willing to fight dirty too, you may as well give up now.

Sorry if anyone finds that offensive or immoral. But in all conflicts, the aggressor sets the rules.

I do not think water-boarding is torture...enough!

I expect my Commander-in-Chief to order it!

-Merry Christmas!

.

Answer 3

Waterboarding has been called torture and I'll bet that anyone subjected to it feels that it is. My understanding is that it's been used twice and in both instances, resulted in preventing acts that would have taken many American lives. As far as, did the President Order it, I don't know but if he did, that's why we elected him. To make the really tough decisions. On that same token, do you suppose that Franklin Roosvelt ordered the rounding up and detention of thousands of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor?

Answer 4

If waterboarding is torture, then don't belong to a group that wants to kill "infidels" so you wont have to experience it.

I would call the agonizing decision to leap to your death or being burned to death would be what true torture is.
Many Americans in the World Trade Center on 9-11 had to make that choice.

Cry me a f**king river, you spineless wimp terrorist lovers.

Answer 5

Waterboarding is not torture. Torture is paying $3.20 for a gallon of gas. Torture is the U.S. dollar being worth less than the paper it's printed on. Torture is watching millions of Americans lose there homes to the greedy savage mortgage companies. Torture is having a 3.5 billion dollar trade deficit to China. Torture is losing millions of American jobs to outsourcing.

I'll take waterboarding over all of this any day.

Answer 6

Waterboarding is torture and I'm all for it.

Bush does not make each and every decision our military employs and to blame him is moronic.

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However when each member of Congress is made aware of ongoings in the year 2002 and they decide to not address their true feelings about it until 5 years later is simply dumb on their part to even consider putting themselves on the chopping block... For more extreme criticism and moronic blunders - proving their lack of...

a) Having a spine
b) Supposedly being educated

Answer 7

Waterboarding has been in practice in the CIA as well as other Military units since the 1950's and NO president ever stopped it's use. The truth is the truth.

Answer 8

If waterboarding is torture, then my big brother and sister are torture experts, just like every other big brother and sister with a swimming pool.

Answer 9

It is not torture, but an invaluable interrogation tool for indelible hard-asses.

I guess we could be more like our enemy and wear hoods while sawing off their heads with rusty machetes.

That this is even an issue is testament to the sorry fact of how many pacifistic fools who fail to recognize evil are in our midst.

Answer 10

contrary to what liberal extremists think, bush isnt involved in every micoactivity in the federal government so b is no. and i agree with the other posting no as well for a as everyone with a swimming pool would be administering torture. now try and ask any surviving family of 911 how many people thinks its torture...i think youlll surely get a different answer when you filter out the liberal whine.

Answer 11

It is torture. That is what the US military and civilian court systems say, and they have prosecuted it on many occasions. One notable occasion was of an American soldier photographed waterboarding a Vietnamese POW. He was courtmartialed promptly for it. A helpful history can be found here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834

From that same link: "Cases of waterboarding have occurred on U.S. soil, as well. In 1983, Texas Sheriff James Parker was charged, along with three of his deputies, for handcuffing prisoners to chairs, placing towels over their faces, and pouring water on the cloth until they gave what the officers considered to be confessions. The sheriff and his deputies were all convicted and sentenced to four years in prison."

The US joined most of the modern democracies in declaring waterboarding to be torture, and was very clear on the matter throughout the 20th century. There is no lack of clarity on this at all.

The second question is difficult to prove. I doubt that something as drastic as changing US policy on torture was not discussed in the White House, and certainly it was discussed at length after the allegations came out. But proving that it was Cheney or Bush that agreed to it is hard. Just like Reagan got away with supporting terrorists and Iran, I think Bush and Cheney will get away with allowing the US to torture suspects (and act upon the "evidence" thus gathered). Apparently presidents have no compunction about admitting to being completely out of the loop on matters of national security, and the US public has no problem with that.

Personally, I believe that the White House at least condones torture, and likely even agreed to it before it started happening. Cheney might not have told Bush at the outset, and Bush might have decided to cover for it when he did find out. Either way, Mukasey's testimony shows that the US executive branch has decided to use waterboarding (and probably other means of torture that haven't made it in the news), reverting longstanding practice, even though the unreliability of confessions and accusations extracted through torture has long been established. One can only assume that this means that US police are now again free to start using the same techniques at home. There is no argument against it anymore.

I'm amused about the number of "thumbs down" ratings. People don't like to be reminded that for a century the US has considered waterboarding torture and has prosecuted foreigner soldiers, US soldiers and US police for participating in it? The Bush White House has overturned more than a century of legal precedent, and y'all are cheering? So you believe president GW Bush over president Reagan? What rot. No wonder the US is declining so rapidly.