Waterboarding saves lives

[NickCole]

I can't imagine what torture mazda3boi had to go thru. I remember the worse I had in '61 was being in a room full of tear gas and had to remove the gas mask just before leaving.

Mazda3boi didn't go through torture.

I have a good friend who was a Navy Seal and what they endure is amazing - extreme training that a lot of people couldn't withstand. But it's not torture. Torture is when you are an unwilling participant and the enemy puts you through severe pain or suffering to extract information or to punish as retaliation. Mazda3boi implying he's been through anything similar to torture only proves he doesn't have any idea what the discussion really is about.

Navy training may feel torturous but it is not torture as it's being discussed in this context.

 

[JayHawk]

"you chicks kill me" Dude we are NOT chicks. We are gay men, if you can't handle that, then get off this site!

Oh get over it. I am a gay man. I still can tell when people are acting less than manly. You know your right though, i know much tougher chicks.

 

[JayHawk]

Mazda3boi didn't go through torture.

I have a good friend who was a Navy Seal and what they endure is amazing - extreme training that a lot of people couldn't withstand. But it's not torture. Torture is when you are an unwilling participant and the enemy puts you through severe pain or suffering to extract information or to punish as retaliation. Mazda3boi implying he's been through anything similar to torture only proves he doesn't have any idea what the discussion really is about.

Navy training may feel torturous but it is not torture as it's being discussed in this context.

I implied no such thing. You folks have the sincere ability to read everything into nothing. i refer not to fucking seals either. We drown proof divers. It proves at the outset whether or not you have the mental stength to hold your shit together in an alien environment. Then in the future the unknown does not earn you and your buddy death.

So how many of you think that kid who showed up in a recruiting station in east bum fuck America and gets talkd into being a diver, who thinks that particular guy made a thoughtful decision to go get drowned????? Anyone that ignorant?

So then when he fails out of the training because it was too fucking much and spends the next four years chipping paint on something haze gray, you consider that a choice? Nope I would say on many matters you folks have no experience and no clue.

For all you smarmy ***folks*** who ask who was saved....tell me who died because the info was wrong. Good now that your done not answering a childish request move on......

 

[iman]

^There may have been many killed because the US has chosen to torture and because of the Abu Ghraid photos. It in flames and motivates our enemies.

Where does it stop, where is the line? How do we expect our own troops to be treated? What treatment do you expect if taken prisoner? The purpose of the Geneva Convention is to establish a threshold and if we don't live up to it, we can't expect the enemy to.

 

[NickCole]

I implied no such thing. You folks have the sincere ability to read everything into nothing. i refer not to fucking seals either. We drown proof divers. It proves at the outset whether or not you have the mental stength to hold your shit together in an alien environment. Then in the future the unknown does not earn you and your buddy death.

So how many of you think that kid who showed up in a recruiting station in east bum fuck America and gets talkd into being a diver, who thinks that particular guy made a thoughtful decision to go get drowned????? Anyone that ignorant?

So then when he fails out of the training because it was too fucking much and spends the next four years chipping paint on something haze gray, you consider that a choice? Nope I would say on many matters you folks have no experience and no clue.

It's very sad that you're still trying to equate, in any way shape or form what so ever, an American serving in the United States Military and a suspected terrorist in custody being tortured by authorization of the White House.

And yes, serving in the United States Military today is a CHOICE. It wasn't when I was 18 but it is today.

 

[JackFTwist]

So how many of you think that kid who showed up in a recruiting station in east bum fuck America and gets talkd into being a diver, who thinks that particular guy made a thoughtful decision to go get drowned????? Anyone that ignorant?

I will share your comments about those who enlist with my son, the Marine. I bet he will think your comments are so cute!!!!!

For all you smarmy ***folks*** who ask who was saved....tell me who died because the info was wrong. Good now that your done not answering a childish request move on......

Always nice to make statements that cannot be proven, just statements that are out there! So! May I suggest to you that your big trump move in that little paragraph just totally fails to impress?

Torture is wrong. Waterboarding is torture. Immorality has nothing to do with who sleeps with who but it has a whole lot to do with the inhumanity such as torture.

 

[Yuki Sohma]

Well now, here goes, let me see if I can make some sense............

Lots of great citizens have given parts of their bodies & a part of their soul & their very lives battling against folks who want to do nothing but hurt the good guys......I hope all of this madness will soon end........but unfortunately I don't see an end to the bad guys attacking us good guys at every opportunity we give them or they find...........we must seek and unfortunately fight for peace because that is the only option we have.......we cannot and must not ever surrender....ever........because if we do....well let's not even consider loosing.....we have to fight on..........

Now on the subject at hand....."waterboarding"...........

"The CIA reports that it no longer uses waterboarding."

"Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, considers waterboarding a form of torture. McCain has been quoted as saying that waterboarding is "no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank." "

"After World War II, U.S. military commissions prosecuted several Japanese soldiers for subjecting U.S. soldiers to waterboarding, according to Human Rights Watch. In 1968, a U.S. soldier was court-martialed for water boarding a Vietnamese prisoner."

"In October 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed the United States had used the controversial technique to interrogate senior Al Qaeda suspects, and he said the White House did not consider waterboarding a form of torture."

"Cheney confirmed waterboarding was used to interrogate Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the senior Al Qaeda operative now being held in Guantanamo Bay, adding that the use of the technique was "a no-brainer." "

 

[Nishin]

^ Do you actually believe your good guy/bad guy Disney dichotomy??

 

[Yuki Sohma]

^ Do you actually believe your good guy/bad guy Disney dichotomy??

Hi Nishin,

Thanks for asking if I believe in good guy /bad guy (Disney dichotomy?)...........-4- I do most certainly believe that there -R- good guys & that there -R- bad guys .........that has been my experience......& may I add that I do hope that there -R- more good guys than bad guys ..............

 

[Nishin]

For all you smarmy ***folks*** who ask who was saved....tell me who died because the info was wrong. Good now that your done not answering a childish request move on......

Try the 23 guys who have been executed in the US, then were later found innocent... I'm pretty sure at least a few of them have been tortured into admitting crimes they did not commit...

 

[Bruce300]

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine
Nuff said

 

[beekman001]

I still fail to see how an assertion along the lines of "waterboarding saves lives" is anything other than a red-herring. This type of assertion attempts to draw conclusions about the morality of the act without answering the fundamental question as to wether it's torture.

 

[Yuki Sohma]

Good Evening Fellow JUBers--

Before leaving home this morning, I was reading Ladislas de Hoyos book Klaus Barbie-The Untold Story. I have voracious appetite for reading and am also an avid book collector.

Anyway, back on subject, Klaus Barbie (October 25, 1913 – September 25, 1991) is an SS-Hauptsturmführer soldier, Gestapo member, and is known as the Butcher of Lyon.

In his book, Ladislas writes the following concerning the use of waterboarding as a form of interrogation --

"Madame Lesevre spent nineteen days under interrogation, nine of them in the torture room, where they forced her to remove all her clothes. When she was naked, Barbie would come in and start hitting her...They tied her to a plank and put her in a metal bath filled with ice-cold water. They took hold of her hair and forced her under until she ceased struggling, then they pulled her out, gasping frantically, and poured water into her mouth from an old biscuit tin as she fought for air. Then they pushed her under again.

Lise told me that even twenty years after the war, she almost fainted every time she saw one of those old iron baths with their splayed legs.

The bath torture failed to loosen her tounge, and Barbie tried another form of persuasion."

Klaus Barbie-The Untold Story, by Ladislas de Hoyos, published by McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985

I wonder if future works will provide similar written remembrances for future generations to judge those of this current generation who use similar persuasive measures?........................

 

[Nishin]

Hi Nishin,

Thanks for asking if I believe in good guy /bad guy (Disney dichotomy?)...........-4- I do most certainly believe that there -R- good guys & that there -R- bad guys .........that has been my experience......& may I add that I do hope that there -R- more good guys than bad guys ..............

Yes a "Disney dichotomy" because only in Disney movies and over-simplistic (mostly) right-wing views do you find such naive fairy tales about "good guys vs bad guys"... humans are generally a bit more complex than that, I find it sad that your experience didn't allow you to reach that conclusion but maybe it will happen sooner or later. And this is said with no condescendence at all, but when I read things like your quote below I can't help to notice how naive you sound...

Lots of great citizens have given parts of their bodies & a part of their soul & their very lives battling against folks who want to do nothing but hurt the good guys......I hope all of this madness will soon end........but unfortunately I don't see an end to the bad guys attacking us good guys at every opportunity we give them or they find...........we must seek and unfortunately fight for peace because that is the only option we have.......we cannot and must not ever surrender....ever........because if we do....well let's not even consider loosing.....we have to fight on..........

Would you please care to define who are the "good" and "bad" guys... what makes one "good" or "bad"... how you know about "bad" guys' inner motives which according to you seem to simply be pure evil ... as I apply your comment to the US-led lie-based Irak [STRIKE]war[/STRIKE] invasion, to what extent the death of innocent men, women and children by thousands is a "good" thing... etc

In my own experience, everybody is a mixture of good or bad, willingly or not, "good" guys do bad things and "bad" guys do good things... the extent of (theorical) Good and Bad towards which we lean allows us to label some people good or bad with more or less legitimacy, but in the end we often forget to try and place ourselves in someone else's shoes and think of what we would do if we were them (including being an innocent being tortured into admitting wrong deeds we did not commit, to be back on track)...
Just my two cents...

 

[levenshulme31]

Hmm, so waterboarding is OK to use if you want someone to answer your questions but they won't give any answers.

I will accept this when Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice and the rest of the White House gang can be waterboarded at every press conference. Maybe they will be a little more willing to answer a few of the questions they have avoided for so long.

Any regime which uses torture deserves to be overthrown and cast out of power.

 

[chance1]

35 seconds got us lots of info that saved lives

seems pretty simple to me

and doesn't seem to be a no brainer this is torture rather than an aggressive interrogation technique

love it how soooo many JUBBERs are more concerned about the bad guys than the good guys - that's cuz they can't really relate to the good guys cuz they're unnamed peeps - but if waterboarding saved members of their family, they'd say ...................

im not so sure it's torture

i respect john mccain and quite frankly he makes the argument very well unlike many here ............

but it saved lives

and as for the mopes taking on mazda, well, ur not doing a very good job

 

[Yuki Sohma]

Would you please care to define who are the "good" and "bad" guys...

I admit that my firm belief in "good people" versus "bad people," in addition to experience based, is also faith based--

I wish to provide a little background first --

My understanding of Buddhist teachings led me to read Professor Ossendowski's writings.

In 1922 -- E.P. Dutton & Company published Beasts, Men and Gods written by Ferdinand Ossendowski (Antoni Ferdynand Ossendowski) (1876-1945) a Polish writer, journalist, traveler, globetrotter, explorer and university professor.

In 1920, Professor Ossendowski joined a group of Poles and White Russians escaping from communist-controlled Siberia to India through Mongolia, China and Tibet--after several thousands of miles the group reached Chinese-controlled Mongolia.

If I may further define my belief in "Good Guys" versus "Bad Guys"--endeavoring not to loose their context--I will provide excerpts and quotes from Professor Ossendowski's writings--drawn from chapters XLVII and XLVIII--

"During my stay in Urga (the capital of the republic of Mongolia) I tried to find an explanation of this legend about the King of the World...As I was leaving the study of the Bogdo Hutuku, I met the librarian who had stepped out ahead of me and asked him if he would show me the library of the Living Buddha...'Several times the Pontiffs of Lhasa and Urga have sent envoys to the King of the World,' said the Lama librarian, 'but they could not find him. Only a certain Tibetan leader after a battle with the Olets found the cave with the inscription: 'This is the gate to Agharti.' From the cave a fine appearing man came forth, presented him with a gold tablet bearing the mysterious signs and said: 'The King of the World will appear before all people when the time shall have arrived for him to lead all the good people of the world against all the bad; but this time has not yet come. The most evil among mankind have not yet been born.' ' "

I have provided a link to the complete electronic text of Professor Ossendowski's book. http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/travel/beasts/

Yuki

 

[beekman001]

35 seconds got us lots of info that saved lives

seems pretty simple to me

and doesn't seem to be a no brainer this is torture rather than an aggressive interrogation technique

Have you read the legal definition of torture? It's totally about why you're subjecting people to such conditions. Which is why mazda's comparison breaks down. We are making these guys think they're being drowned for the purposes of coercing them to reveal information. That fits well within the definition of torture.

love it how soooo many JUBBERs are more concerned about the bad guys than the good guys - that's cuz they can't really relate to the good guys cuz they're unnamed peeps - but if waterboarding saved members of their family, they'd say ...................

im not so sure it's torture

i respect john mccain and quite frankly he makes the argument very well unlike many here ............

I dont give a rodent's rectum about the 'bad guys'. The point here is the moral standards to which we hold ourselves and our government. To say that we can relax our standards of behavior because its going to save X people's lives is moral relitivism of the worst kind and I want no part in a country or a government that behaves like that.

but it saved lives
...

Just because something saves the lives of many people doesnt make it the right thing to do. Harvesting organs from Chinese political prisoners saves lives too but that doesnt make it right.

 

[chance1]

How old are you? Seriously? This sounds like something a 14 year old who spends all his time watching cartoons and playing video games would say.

Not to mention the fact that it sounds like something someone who believes every word that comes out of Bush's or Cheney's mouth would say. Don't tell me you don't know for a fact that both of them are pathological liars. If there really were "good guys" and "evil guys", Cheney would be the Grim Reaper.

Changing what you call something doesn't change what it is. I can drink a Coke and call it coffee but it's still Coke. I can break somebody's ribs and call it making love but it's still assault.

for the record, im not a video game guy - guess I didn't include that in our "get to know u thread"

I am old enough to know that these are unusual times with enemies/combatants that are less than traditional - that sometimes that requires decisions that are difficult - in order to save lives (perhaps urs)

not sure why thinking waterboarding/other tough interrogation technics is no "bush/cheney"

ur coke/coffee thingy makes no sense

 

[smelter]

I am old enough to know that these are unusual times with enemies/combatants that are less than traditional - that sometimes that requires decisions that are difficult - in order to save lives (perhaps urs)

That same false argument has no doubt been trotted out by victors in every war waged in the history of mankind. Barbaric acts are inexcusable regardless of which side commits them. You might win the war but losing your humanity in the process is never worth the price!