My argument for waterboarding

[JohnOfSheffield]

Jaskalas, have you ever been subjected to waterboarding, Atreus21, have you ever been subjectd to it?

No? And yet you think you can decide whether the feeling of drowning is an inflicted pain enough worthy of being decided to be torture.

There is no question about it, it is more than torture, it is severe torture or lets forget the fucking geneva conventions but don't you fucking arse holes ever mention them ever again.

Got that shitforbrains, that is it, it's you and the islamic supremacists, that is it, you are the only fucking two groups using these kinds of fucking measures, you are the only two fucking groups not abiding by the geneva conventions.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

And IF i am not mistaken, it would take a breach of order from the highest command to do something like this, either that or the geneva conventions are not something the US Army are sworn to uphold, and i KNOW they are.

That would make such an act a war crime.

 

[blackllotus]

Originally posted by: Atreus21
And based on my rudimentary argument above, I think it is not, solely because it does not inflict physical damage.

You mean lasting physical damage. I can punch someone and inflict physical pain without causing any effects that wouldn't wear off in short time. How is drowning somebody and then stopping the drowning before they die any different? I'm sure the convulsions during drowning cause pain. Of course the problem here is that you haven't defined what constitutes lasting physical damage. It's fairly simple to argue that, in the long run, the extra harm caused by whipping somebody is negligible.

 

[fallout man]

"What's that Lassie? No organ failure? That's A-OK-U.S.A then!"

*sarcasm alert for those of you whose sarcasm meters are running low on batteries*

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Jaskalas, have you ever been subjected to waterboarding, Atreus21, have you ever been subjectd to it?

No? And yet you think you can decide whether the feeling of drowning is an inflicted pain enough worthy of being decided to be torture.

There is no question about it, it is more than torture, it is severe torture or lets forget the fucking geneva conventions but don't you fucking arse holes ever mention them ever again.

Got that shitforbrains, that is it, it's you and the islamic supremacists, that is it, you are the only fucking two groups using these kinds of fucking measures, you are the only two fucking groups not abiding by the geneva conventions.

I stand by the circumstances under which it was used. Three times on the highest members and not within the last 5 years since it came under scrutiny. That is perfectly within reason.

If Congress passed a law to define and outlaw it, I would stand by upholding that law and for punishing those who break it thereafter. I don?t care if it?s used or not, I care that people assault this nation calling it evil over methods that are debatable.

And yes, I don?t think it compares to being physically maimed. Compared to Germans shoving glass up your urinary track and SMASHING your ***** to ensure it broke off into little shards so that you?d die a slow and painful death. Yeah, waterboarding doesn?t seem to compare.

 

[fallout man]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

If Congress passed a law to define and outlaw it, I would stand by upholding that law and for punishing those who break it thereafter. I don?t care if it?s used or not, I care that people assault this nation calling it evil over methods that are debatable.

The US is signatory to a fucking international law which considers the fucking waterboarding to be a fucking war crime. That law was passed, and it clearly defines things. You want congress to pass the fucking Cliff Notes version for you?

Furthermore, I'm willing to wager that you wouldn't consider these "methods debatable" if it was your stupid ass in the ropes.

Here we go with more of the "how dare you assault this nation" bullshit. We've collectively fucked ourselves. After that, any criticism of our country by outsiders is "debatably irrelevant."

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

I stand by the circumstances under which it was used. Three times on the highest members and not within the last 5 years since it came under scrutiny. That is perfectly within reason.

If Congress passed a law to define and outlaw it, I would stand by upholding that law and for punishing those who break it thereafter. I don?t care if it?s used or not, I care that people assault this nation calling it evil over methods that are debatable.

And yes, I don?t think it compares to being physically maimed. Compared to Germans shoving glass up your urinary track and SMASHING your ***** to ensure it broke off into little shards so that you?d die a slow and painful death. Yeah, waterboarding doesn?t seem to compare.

So I'm seeing a few arguments here, none of which seem valid.

Your first one is that because we infrequently torture that it's okay. This is a moral issue, and it doesn't suddenly become wrong after you do it 5 or 10 times. It's always wrong.

Secondly you are trying to use the position that waterboarding is not illegal because somehow it's not specifically outlawed. Well, the glass in the urinary tract isn't specifically outlawed either. Waterboarding clearly fits into the definitions of torture supplied by treaties to which we are signatory and to the anti torture law passed by congress last session.

Thirdly, just because there are worse forms of torture out there, that makes waterboarding not torture how?

 

[Siddhartha]

nm

 

[Rainsford]

This whole debate misses the point, which is exactly the intention of people who bring up the "what is torture" topic. Don't get me wrong, it's a fine topic if we were all sitting around having a philosophical discussion about the definition of a word, but that's not what we're doing. Really, these discussions are about whether or not it's OK for the US to do certain things to prisoners.

And as soon as you start debating the definition of torture, the pro-waterboarding folks have won the argument. Not because of what's being said, but of what's NOT being said...by arguing the definition of torture at all, you've granted the key point of their argument...that the ONLY things that should be prohibited are things we can define as torture. Think about it, if the rules were determined based on individual practice rather than blanket categories, who gives a shit if waterboarding is "torture" or not, it can still be wrong and still be something we should ever do to prisoners. But once you start debating whether or not waterboarding is torture, you've granted the unspoken premise that the ONLY reason to not waterboard prisoners is if it is torture. So we can go round and round with the semantic game, never really making any progress, totally ignoring the completely ridiculous theory underlying the whole language debate...that it even really matters what we call it.

I'd be giving the pro-waterboarding folks too much credit if I said they came up with this tactic, but it's actually a pretty well known debate strategy. As a general rule, the best way to avoid having to defend a weak argument is to divert the argument towards something else...and arguing what the definition of a word is presents a perfect opportunity for that.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas
I stand by the circumstances under which it was used. Three times on the highest members and not within the last 5 years since it came under scrutiny. That is perfectly within reason.

First off, it's three that you KNOW of. Last week, it was zero. Next month, who knows?

If Congress passed a law to define and outlaw it, I would stand by upholding that law and for punishing those who break it thereafter. I don?t care if it?s used or not, I care that people assault this nation calling it evil over methods that are debatable.

There are already laws saying this torture is illegal. Why do we need new ones? The US has arrested and convicted local law enforcement for waterboarding their prisoners. The US Army has court-martialed soldiers for water-boarding. The US Gov has convicted WWII Japanese for waterboarding.

What more do you need to think that torture is ALREADY illegal?

And yes, I don?t think it compares to being physically maimed. Compared to Germans shoving glass up your urinary track and SMASHING your ***** to ensure it broke off into little shards so that you?d die a slow and painful death. Yeah, waterboarding doesn?t seem to compare.

So what, and how do you know? So some torture is OK, since it isn't as "bad" as other torture? So murdering someone quickly is better then dragging the suffering out? What kind of twisted thinking is that? Murder is murder no matter how you do it, same with torture.

And no one replied to by questions above in the thread. Since you don't have a problem torturing people Jaskalas, what are the criteria that someone can get tortured? A "gut feeling" from someone that they have information? Proof of a crime? What?

And what do you do to the people that you torture when you find out they are innocent (IE you got the wrong person)?