House passes bill to ban waterboarding

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by IminWonderland

Why can't we know who said it haas been OK for them to do this?

Why are they destroying the evidence and begging the Judical Branch to end their inquiries?

If we are so righteous then why is our government trying to hide this?


No oversight. No one stepping up or in.

That's an even bigger problem than the torture.

The Department of Justice is stepping in right now. And we know who destroyed the tapes. And we're pretty sure we already know why. There is oversight here. Pelosi et al was briefed on this from the get-go.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by JaJae

What can their nation's government do that we couldn't have done?

Torture them legally?

That's why we've sent suspects to countries with horrible human rights records to be interrogated by their governments.. like that innocent guy who was sent to Syria and tortured for over a year.

Mistakes can, have, and will continue to be made about the guilt of a person, and that's another reason to be against it.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

So in other words you're just willing to draw the line on when it's acceptable to torture another human being in a different place.

Torture is abhorrent to me in all of its forms.. no matter who the person is, they're still a human being deserving of basic human rights, which is why things like the Geneva Conventions and our national laws ban things like torture no matter how horrible the crime or the criminal is.

There are other methods of interrogation that have been proven effective that don't constitute torture. We should be employing those and listening to people who've been tortured, like John McCain and other military experts who recognize what a failure it is as an interrogation technique, and what a morally repugnant practice it is.

I think we're a better country than to engage in it. What surprises me is how many right wing Christians seem to be in favor of it. Someone should make a bumper sticker that asks, "Who would Jesus torture?"

Are you suggesting we didn't try the methods of interrogation that weren't waterboarding beforehand? What methods would you prefer?

Do you believe taking the life of a human being is abhorrent? How about if it's still a fetus, is it ok then? I personally support capital punishment. I do not support capital punishment on someone for speeding. There are distinctions that can be made however arbitrary to the person.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by JaJae

The Department of Justice is stepping in right now. And we know who destroyed the tapes. And we're pretty sure we already know why. There is oversight here. Pelosi et al was briefed on this from the get-go.

Yeah, they're stepping in and asking Congress to back off it's investigation.

I don't trust the DoJ any further than I can throw it considering how politicized Bush has made it, people who are considered independent, and not "loyal Bushies" who will support White House policies are forced out and replaced with lackies.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

Yeah, they're stepping in and asking Congress to back off it's investigation.

I don't trust the DoJ any further than I can throw it considering how politicized Bush has made it, people who are considered independent, and not "loyal Bushies" who will support White House policies are forced out and replaced with lackies.

The same Justice Department that investigated an incident that wasn't even a crime and ended up sentencing a Bush chrony to federal prison?

[motivez]

If other methods fail we should resign ourselves to the fact that this person is out of the world and can't hurt anyone else.. instead of violating human rights standards that have separated civilized nations from barbaric ones for several generations..

I can't support the death penalty because justice in death penalty cases isn't applied equally, and studies have shown that.. we talked about that some in the other thread.

There's a key difference, though, in that those people have been given a chance to defend themselves against the allegations made, have been judged by a jury of their peers, and hopefully have had an adequate defense.

In abortion, the debate is about whether or not the fetus is a person who's deserving of rights.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by JaJae

The same Justice Department that investigated an incident that wasn't even a crime and ended up sentencing a Bush chrony to federal prison?

A special prosecutor is different. I'd support a special prosecutor in this case.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

If other methods fail we should resign ourselves to the fact that this person is out of the world and can't hurt anyone else.. instead of violating human rights standards that have separated civilized nations from barbaric ones for several generations..

I can't support the death penalty because justice in death penalty cases isn't applied equally, and studies have shown that.. we talked about that some in the other thread.

There's a key difference, though, in that those people have been given a chance to defend themselves against the allegations made, have been judged by a jury of their peers, and hopefully have had an adequate defense.

In abortion, the debate is about whether or not the fetus is a person who's deserving of rights.

I understand the abortion debate. It's still a human being by all respects and definitions. The question was whether or not you feel it's wrong to kill a human being? Probably yes. But if you're pro-choice that doesn't extend to fetuses. And again you're essentially ignoring the human being aspect of the question here and talking about whether or not it deserves rights. So let's ask it this way:

Do you believe a human being has the right to not be killed? What if it's a fetus? Again there's differing views among our population. Abortion makes us look bad to many other countries/cultures who find it despicable that we'd treat our unborn children with such abhorrent disregard.

[motivez]

You're making up questions like you did earlier about how many people would you be willing to torture / kill in order to prevent 9/11, save your family, etc.. It's a bullshit argument designed to make the person you're asking look bad.

And, a fetus might become a human being, but whether it has rights is fundamental to the question about whether abortion is right or wrong.

But this thread isn't about another subject, it's about torture.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

You're making up questions like you did earlier about how many people would you be willing to torture / kill in order to prevent 9/11, save your family, etc.. It's a bullshit argument designed to make the person you're asking look bad.

And, a fetus might become a human being, but whether it has rights is fundamental to the question about whether abortion is right or wrong.

But this thread isn't about another subject, it's about torture.

No it's a bullshit question to see if they'd be willing to hold those standards if it applied directly to them. The topic is about torture, but the premise is similar. We're talking about barbaric customs and degrees of wrongness. You asked if I would torture a little girl to save American lives. No, but I would probably waterboard a terrorist responsible for the lives of Americans if I thought or knew it would have saved lives. Which in at least one case it did.

You then questioned my motives as to it being acceptable only sometimes as if I'm hypocritical. The reality is it's not that simple or black and white. I would not condone torture in all circumstances the same as I don't condone capital punishment in all circumstances. I have my own personal arbitrary lines to where I find it acceptable or not. And it goes right back to the question I asked about whether it was your family who would have been the victim of one of these terrorist attacks.

Do I think waterboarding is torture? Yes. I don't like that we do it, at all. However, when it comes down the reality of saving American lives there is a moral conundrum there that I walk. And to further illustrate that conundrum I'm asking, what if it were your family.

We're so quick to judge the people involved in the waterboarding. What if they saved the life of your husband or brother in Iraq? What if those 35 seconds of water being flushed down that son of a bitch's throat saved the life of your child? If it were my kid I'd pour the damn water myself. And in that sense I find it hard to fault the people who did it and saved the lives of other people's families.

Waterboarding is evil. But is it a necessary or acceptable evil of our society akin to abortion and capital punishment? That's where the moral issues come into play. Linking back to abortion a lot of people decide it's wrong depending on how developed the fetus is. It's really not an issue of black or white. People have their own moral issues that they deal with.

I go on DailyKos and read people upset about partial-birth abortion bans, but then making posts complaining about waterboarding. That seems strange to me and it fully encompasses the moral issues that waterboarding/torture endures. I don't think it's as simple as waterboarding is wrong therefore it should never, ever be done under any circumstance in the same way as people view abortion or even capital punishment.

I think it's interesting that we live in a society where it's socially acceptable to kill an unborn child out of convenience, yet it's always wrong to pour water down a terrorists throat for half a minute to save American lives.

[Scrum]

Did someone pull out the 24/ticking time-bomb excuse?
Jack Bauer isn't a real person for any who need a reality check.




I don't care if this one case did get a real confession out of someone, it's been shown time and time again that torture does not lead to actionable intelligence.

I would rather we endure a 9/11 every month than stoop to this level. Torture is reprehensible in any form.


edit - And comparing this to abortion?

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Scrum

Did someone pull out the 24/ticking time-bomb excuse?
Jack Bauer isn't a real person for any who need a reality check.

I don't care if this one case did get a real confession out of someone, it's been shown time and time again that torture does not lead to actionable intelligence.

I would rather we endure a 9/11 every month than stoop to this level. Torture is reprehensible in any form.

edit - And comparing this to abortion?

For people who don't think we should be killing our unborn children the moral equivilency is real. I was talking to people about waterboarding at work and talking about the morality of it. An older person I work with in his 70s basically said "we kill our unwanted children and there's no argument, yet we scare a terrorist into thinking he's dying and suddenly everyone's an activist." It's hard to argue with that line of thinking. A younger girl said, "Technically a fetus doesn't have rights." And he said "that's the line of thinking they're fighting against for these terrorists." It made me think. He isn't for or against waterboarding, but his argument is substantial.

And once again the torture doesn't equal reliable intelligence argument is fairly mute here since it's worked, dozens of times.

[motivez]

The abortion debate is nothing more than a diversion, it's two fundamentally different issues.

The question of abortion is one is whether the fetus is a person deserving of basic human rights that supercede the rights of the woman carrying it. The question of torture is whether or not it's acceptable to torture a human being who's been accused of something or if they deserve basic human rights.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

The abortion debate is nothing more than a diversion, it's two fundamentally different issues.

The question of abortion is one is whether the fetus is a person deserving of basic human rights that supercede the rights of the woman carrying it. The question of torture is whether or not it's acceptable to torture a human being who's been accused of something or if they deserve basic human rights.

The issues are different, but the moral debate is very similar. The abortion debate is over whether or not the fetus has any rights, period. It doesn't need more rights than its mother in order to not be killed. It just needs to be recognized as having rights at all, that's enough to prevent it from being murdered.

[motivez]

The reason this abortion debate is a diversion is because there's a question about when it becomes a person instead of a clump of cells and should have rights

There's no question that people we capture and accuse of are humans. I think they deserve basic human rights, and deserve not to be tortured. Other people disagree obviously.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

The reason this abortion debate is a diversion is because there's a question about when it becomes a person instead of a clump of cells and should have rights

There's no question that people we capture and accuse of are humans. I think they deserve basic human rights, and deserve not to be tortured. Other people disagree obviously.

You're defining the abortion debate from a pro-choice perspective. To many people who are pro-life, human life is human life and should be cherished and protected. You're saying there's a debate as to whether or not it's a person or when it even becomes a person. In that statement you're taking the pro-choice stance. People who are pro-life are against abortion. They don't sit there and weight the pros and cons of when the human life is acceptable to kill. As you have said there is a debate on it. You may view human life as a clump that can be discarded, but that doesn't mean everybody does. The same as just because you view terrorists have a moral obligation to not be waterboarded doesn't mean everyone does. There's a gray area that can be defined.

You disagreed when I attempted to define a moral gray area on waterboarding essentially saying the issue is black and white, no gray area can exist. But just like many other hot button issues such as abortion and capital punishment there's often gray areas to other people.

If I were to say human life is human life and protected by law, there is no moral gray area on abortion I'm sure you would disagree and start painting all the gray... clump of cells, more rights than the mother, etc. I'm trying to do the same with waterboarding.

Do I think it's a good thing? No. Do I think it's something we should be proud of? No. But it's something I may be willing to accept the same as abortion and capital punishment.

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by JaJae

. An older person I work with in his 70s basically said "we kill our unwanted children and there's no argument, yet we scare a terrorist into thinking he's dying and suddenly everyone's an activist."

How many times can it be repeated?

Torture is always wrong. No matter how you try and twist this with labels like "terrorist" or "Enemy combatant" or whatever. Torture is still wrong and we lower ourselves to the level of the people we are trying to defend ourselves against by using it.

We say actions like this are terrible and is a reason for our intervention in the middle east, yet we employ them ourselves.

Originally Posted by JaJae

And once again the torture doesn't equal reliable intelligence argument is fairly mute here since it's worked, dozens of times.

I'll take results from studies over the word of someone whose job could rely on the authorization to use these interrogation techniques.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Scrum

How many times can it be repeated?

Torture is always wrong. No matter how you try and twist this with labels like "terrorist" or "Enemy combatant" or whatever. Torture is still wrong and we lower ourselves to the level of the people we are trying to defend ourselves against by using it.

We say actions like this are terrible and is a reason for our intervention in the middle east, yet we employ them ourselves.

That's your point of view and I'm not saying it isn't a valid one. What I'm trying to say is perhaps it isn't so black and white. I could say killing another human being is always wrong, but people who are pro-choice or pro-capital punishment would probably have to object. It's a matter of opinion. You can keep telling me yours, but it isn't going to invalidate mine. And I'm not trying to twist anything by saying terrorist. I'm trying to be specific. I'm for capital punishment for basically only murder. So when I'm explaining the morality of capital punishment I'm going to use the term murderer or criminals, etc. I don't think we should be waterboarding little girls, but terrorists I'm still up in the air on.

I'll take results from studies over the word of someone whose job could rely on the authorization to use these interrogation techniques.

Studies by whom? How were the studies conducted? What were the results for waterboarding? In these cases of waterboarding we received reliable intelligence. That's the only concrete information I have in regards to current CIA waterboarding, so that's what I'm going by.

[nbiggershaft]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Even if it were your family? Would you be willing to sacrifice your family? Waterboarding this guy for 35 seconds prevented dozens attacks. If your family were to be the victims of one of those attacks would you still have the same opinion? I'm trying to get you personalize this, because that is the way I look at it. If it weren't just Americans, and it weren't just "lives" and instead it was your family how would you feel on the issue?

This is the kind of statement that scares me to come out of anyones mouth. What can't you justify if you accept an argument like this? The stuff tyranny is made of.

[David Octavius]

9/11 was preventable had airport security did their job and followed procedure or if the intelligence agencies actually trusted each other and shared information about known terrorists...it didn't take torture to prevent 9-11, it took competence - and that is what we are missing right now.