Waterboarding: sometimes it's necessary

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Certainly you can see the difference between someone like Abu Zubaydah and his ilk and a common criminal...come on man....

Tell me the difference between AZ and a war criminal. After all, that is what someone is when they commit acts in violation of the Geneva Convention which we are a signatory to. I'm not claiming that he is a common criminal any more than I am willing to dismiss the actions of those that are violating human rights in direct conflict with agreed upon standards.

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Perhaps you didnt read the article. It *DID* yiled results.

And you are right. Everyone is CREATED equal, but we dont all evolve that way. Certainly someone like OBL or Abu Zubaydah doesnt deserve the same treatment nor priveledges as you.

They lost their privileges to live within society. They didn't lose the right to be treated as a human being.

Don't take that to mean that they don't deserve to be brought to justice and to stand trial for their actions. They most certainly do. If a jury convicts them, so be it. But under our country's most important and defining document, they deserve that.

If you feel that they don't....that speaks volumes about your ability to think and act rationally.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Certainly you can see the difference between someone like Abu Zubaydah and his ilk and a common criminal...come on man....

Tell me the difference between AZ and a war criminal. After all, that is what someone is when they commit acts in violation of the Geneva Convention which we are a signatory to. I'm not claiming that he is a common criminal any more than I am willing to dismiss the actions of those that are violating human rights in direct conflict with agreed upon standards.

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Perhaps you didnt read the article. It *DID* yiled results.

And you are right. Everyone is CREATED equal, but we dont all evolve that way. Certainly someone like OBL or Abu Zubaydah doesnt deserve the same treatment nor priveledges as you.

They lost their privileges to live within society. They didn't lose the right to be treated as a human being.

Don't take that to mean that they don't deserve to be brought to justice and to stand trial for their actions. They most certainly do. If a jury convicts them, so be it. But under our country's most important and defining document, they deserve that.

If you feel that they don't....that speaks volumes about your ability to think and act rationally.

Sorry, Right, Geneva Conv arent applicable here.

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Certainly you can see the difference between someone like Abu Zubaydah and his ilk and a common criminal...come on man....

Tell me the difference between AZ and a war criminal. After all, that is what someone is when they commit acts in violation of the Geneva Convention which we are a signatory to. I'm not claiming that he is a common criminal any more than I am willing to dismiss the actions of those that are violating human rights in direct conflict with agreed upon standards.

Originally posted by: blackangst1
Perhaps you didnt read the article. It *DID* yiled results.

And you are right. Everyone is CREATED equal, but we dont all evolve that way. Certainly someone like OBL or Abu Zubaydah doesnt deserve the same treatment nor priveledges as you.

They lost their privileges to live within society. They didn't lose the right to be treated as a human being.

Don't take that to mean that they don't deserve to be brought to justice and to stand trial for their actions. They most certainly do. If a jury convicts them, so be it. But under our country's most important and defining document, they deserve that.

If you feel that they don't....that speaks volumes about your ability to think and act rationally.

Sorry, Right, Geneva Conv arent applicable here.

Why? Simply because the Bush admin claims that they don't?

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Think a bit more about the anology. This guy is pounding on his girlfriend and my friend takes him out with a single blow. Abu Zubaydah was involved in crashing airplanes into buildings and killing thousands of people so we waterboard him. Which is the worse offense in your opinion, waterboarding or crashing airplanes into buildings?

Sorry, but the argument that "We are just as bad as them." just doesn't fly. It's nothing more than poor reasoning meant to impart guilt because if you think even the least bit about that claim even a kindergartener can understand that we are not anywhere close to being as bad as they are. There's no contest in that regard. Ultimately that makes that claim nothing more than hyperbole and appears to be almost a method of aplogizing for those who would gladly do vile and sinister things to any of us if they had the chance.

Guys in case you were wondering, it appears that two wrongs DO in fact make a right.

Saying you shouldn't torture people has literally NOTHING to do with who you are torturing or why. It has everything to do with if you are the type of person or society that thinks torturing people is okay. Maybe you do... but I don't and I don't think any decent person should either.

Lame. It's a poor argument to attempt to lump all torture together and use the "OMG! He's pro-torture." accusation. I've already addressed that issue and tactic in this thread. Stop wasting your breath with that kind of bullshit. I realize it's a common tactic for you in here, but you still haven't figured out that it reflects far more poorly on the accuser than the accused. Get a clue.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Think a bit more about the anology. This guy is pounding on his girlfriend and my friend takes him out with a single blow. Abu Zubaydah was involved in crashing airplanes into buildings and killing thousands of people so we waterboard him. Which is the worse offense in your opinion, waterboarding or crashing airplanes into buildings?

Sorry, but the argument that "We are just as bad as them." just doesn't fly. It's nothing more than poor reasoning meant to impart guilt because if you think even the least bit about that claim even a kindergartener can understand that we are not anywhere close to being as bad as they are. There's no contest in that regard. Ultimately that makes that claim nothing more than hyperbole and appears to be almost a method of aplogizing for those who would gladly do vile and sinister things to any of us if they had the chance.

Guys in case you were wondering, it appears that two wrongs DO in fact make a right.

Saying you shouldn't torture people has literally NOTHING to do with who you are torturing or why. It has everything to do with if you are the type of person or society that thinks torturing people is okay. Maybe you do... but I don't and I don't think any decent person should either.

Lame. It's a poor argument to attempt to lump all torture together and use the "OMG! He's pro-torture." accusation. I've already addressed that issue and tactic in this thread. Stop wasting your breath with that kind of bullshit. I realize it's a common tactic for you in here, but you still haven't figured out that it reflects far more poorly on the accuser than the accused. Get a clue.

Get a clue said the morally clueless fool. Crashing an airplane into buildings is the worst offense. Both offenses are offenses committed by moral lepers and slime. While one offense is greater than the other both are committed by the same kind of pigs. You either become what you fear or you take the harder journey to ethics and morality. You either stand for truth and justice or you stand for pig shit, like our enemy. When you become them they have won. But you don't want to see the real war and test you have to meet because you are morally weak and don't have what it takes to win. Yours is a race to see who can be the last standing loser.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Think a bit more about the anology. This guy is pounding on his girlfriend and my friend takes him out with a single blow. Abu Zubaydah was involved in crashing airplanes into buildings and killing thousands of people so we waterboard him. Which is the worse offense in your opinion, waterboarding or crashing airplanes into buildings?

Sorry, but the argument that "We are just as bad as them." just doesn't fly. It's nothing more than poor reasoning meant to impart guilt because if you think even the least bit about that claim even a kindergartener can understand that we are not anywhere close to being as bad as they are. There's no contest in that regard. Ultimately that makes that claim nothing more than hyperbole and appears to be almost a method of aplogizing for those who would gladly do vile and sinister things to any of us if they had the chance.

Guys in case you were wondering, it appears that two wrongs DO in fact make a right.

Saying you shouldn't torture people has literally NOTHING to do with who you are torturing or why. It has everything to do with if you are the type of person or society that thinks torturing people is okay. Maybe you do... but I don't and I don't think any decent person should either.

Lame. It's a poor argument to attempt to lump all torture together and use the "OMG! He's pro-torture." accusation. I've already addressed that issue and tactic in this thread. Stop wasting your breath with that kind of bullshit. I realize it's a common tactic for you in here, but you still haven't figured out that it reflects far more poorly on the accuser than the accused. Get a clue.

Get a clue said the morally clueless fool. Crashing an airplane into buildings is the worst offense. Both offenses are offenses committed by moral lepers and slime. While one offense is greater than the other both are committed by the same kind of pigs. You either become what you fear or you take the harder journey to ethics and morality. You either stand for truth and justice or you stand for pig shit, like our enemy. When you become them they have won. But you don't want to see the real war and test you have to meet because you are morally weak and don't have what it takes to win. Yours is a race to see who can be the last standing loser.

And here comes Moonie with his favorite accusation of someone being morally bankrupt. One might suspect he does that because of his own moral bankruptcy and his penchant to atone for that fault by playing the morality card as a sort of compensation.

I love psychology, Moonie. It can be used to gen up a suspect motivation behind just about anything. It's fun pulling accusations out of your ass too...isn't it?

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Think a bit more about the anology. This guy is pounding on his girlfriend and my friend takes him out with a single blow. Abu Zubaydah was involved in crashing airplanes into buildings and killing thousands of people so we waterboard him. Which is the worse offense in your opinion, waterboarding or crashing airplanes into buildings?

Sorry, but the argument that "We are just as bad as them." just doesn't fly. It's nothing more than poor reasoning meant to impart guilt because if you think even the least bit about that claim even a kindergartener can understand that we are not anywhere close to being as bad as they are. There's no contest in that regard. Ultimately that makes that claim nothing more than hyperbole and appears to be almost a method of aplogizing for those who would gladly do vile and sinister things to any of us if they had the chance.

Guys in case you were wondering, it appears that two wrongs DO in fact make a right.

Saying you shouldn't torture people has literally NOTHING to do with who you are torturing or why. It has everything to do with if you are the type of person or society that thinks torturing people is okay. Maybe you do... but I don't and I don't think any decent person should either.

Lame. It's a poor argument to attempt to lump all torture together and use the "OMG! He's pro-torture." accusation. I've already addressed that issue and tactic in this thread. Stop wasting your breath with that kind of bullshit. I realize it's a common tactic for you in here, but you still haven't figured out that it reflects far more poorly on the accuser than the accused. Get a clue.

Get a clue said the morally clueless fool. Crashing an airplane into buildings is the worst offense. Both offenses are offenses committed by moral lepers and slime. While one offense is greater than the other both are committed by the same kind of pigs. You either become what you fear or you take the harder journey to ethics and morality. You either stand for truth and justice or you stand for pig shit, like our enemy. When you become them they have won. But you don't want to see the real war and test you have to meet because you are morally weak and don't have what it takes to win. Yours is a race to see who can be the last standing loser.

And here comes Moonie with his favorite accusation of someone being morally bankrupt. One might suspect he does that because of his own moral bankruptcy and his penchant to atone for that fault by playing the morality card as a sort of compensation.

I love psychology, Moonie. It can be used to gen up a suspect motivation behind just about anything. It's fun pulling accusations out of your ass too...isn't it?

You somehow think that because someone does something evil that you are then entitled to do something evil to them. You seem to fail to recognize that whether or not torture is evil is not dependent on who you are torturing.

Throw all the crap you want, you can't win this argument. You're used to getting kicked around in here by now though, so maybe its where you feel most at home.

 

[chucky2]

Where did this notion crop up that when we get these high value detainees, that we torture them just because they did bad things to us in the past?

The whole point of deciding to go past the point of humane interrogation by torturing is not to force atonement, it's to prevent more harm coming to innocent people. That's it, The end. Whoever's thinking this is being done for Friday Movie Night at the local CIA office is off their rocker and needs to get a grip...

This is why these techniques are not employed on a daily basis to foot soldiers (even though they probably could be to the benefit of tactical knowledge), but rather only in cases deemed necessary - and that's cleared way high up, so it's going to be extra special cases by virtue of even putting the question to those higher placed people.

This is not, Waterboarding: It's Always Necessary, or, Waterboarding: It's Almost Always Necessary.

Chuck

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Think a bit more about the anology. This guy is pounding on his girlfriend and my friend takes him out with a single blow. Abu Zubaydah was involved in crashing airplanes into buildings and killing thousands of people so we waterboard him. Which is the worse offense in your opinion, waterboarding or crashing airplanes into buildings?

Sorry, but the argument that "We are just as bad as them." just doesn't fly. It's nothing more than poor reasoning meant to impart guilt because if you think even the least bit about that claim even a kindergartener can understand that we are not anywhere close to being as bad as they are. There's no contest in that regard. Ultimately that makes that claim nothing more than hyperbole and appears to be almost a method of aplogizing for those who would gladly do vile and sinister things to any of us if they had the chance.

Guys in case you were wondering, it appears that two wrongs DO in fact make a right.

Saying you shouldn't torture people has literally NOTHING to do with who you are torturing or why. It has everything to do with if you are the type of person or society that thinks torturing people is okay. Maybe you do... but I don't and I don't think any decent person should either.

Lame. It's a poor argument to attempt to lump all torture together and use the "OMG! He's pro-torture." accusation. I've already addressed that issue and tactic in this thread. Stop wasting your breath with that kind of bullshit. I realize it's a common tactic for you in here, but you still haven't figured out that it reflects far more poorly on the accuser than the accused. Get a clue.

Get a clue said the morally clueless fool. Crashing an airplane into buildings is the worst offense. Both offenses are offenses committed by moral lepers and slime. While one offense is greater than the other both are committed by the same kind of pigs. You either become what you fear or you take the harder journey to ethics and morality. You either stand for truth and justice or you stand for pig shit, like our enemy. When you become them they have won. But you don't want to see the real war and test you have to meet because you are morally weak and don't have what it takes to win. Yours is a race to see who can be the last standing loser.

And here comes Moonie with his favorite accusation of someone being morally bankrupt. One might suspect he does that because of his own moral bankruptcy and his penchant to atone for that fault by playing the morality card as a sort of compensation.

I love psychology, Moonie. It can be used to gen up a suspect motivation behind just about anything. It's fun pulling accusations out of your ass too...isn't it?

You know next to nothing about psychology except your big fat ego says you do. You can gin up anything at all because you have no core beliefs and no moral center. You are a leaf in the breeze whose opinion varies depending on whether yours or your neighbor's ox got gored. Your fun is in your unsubstantiated imagination and a lack of ethical restraint. You are a loser with an ego substitute for real self respect. You have no idea how sad you really are. Poor poor chicken. I see into your dark, my friend and there's nothing that can change it. Poor poor emotionally stunted chicken. Nothing but a nasty beast hiding a sad molested little boy like the Wizard of OZ, and behind all that the image of God that was soiled. Poor poor chicken has lost his way.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Think a bit more about the anology. This guy is pounding on his girlfriend and my friend takes him out with a single blow. Abu Zubaydah was involved in crashing airplanes into buildings and killing thousands of people so we waterboard him. Which is the worse offense in your opinion, waterboarding or crashing airplanes into buildings?

Sorry, but the argument that "We are just as bad as them." just doesn't fly. It's nothing more than poor reasoning meant to impart guilt because if you think even the least bit about that claim even a kindergartener can understand that we are not anywhere close to being as bad as they are. There's no contest in that regard. Ultimately that makes that claim nothing more than hyperbole and appears to be almost a method of aplogizing for those who would gladly do vile and sinister things to any of us if they had the chance.

Guys in case you were wondering, it appears that two wrongs DO in fact make a right.

Saying you shouldn't torture people has literally NOTHING to do with who you are torturing or why. It has everything to do with if you are the type of person or society that thinks torturing people is okay. Maybe you do... but I don't and I don't think any decent person should either.

Lame. It's a poor argument to attempt to lump all torture together and use the "OMG! He's pro-torture." accusation. I've already addressed that issue and tactic in this thread. Stop wasting your breath with that kind of bullshit. I realize it's a common tactic for you in here, but you still haven't figured out that it reflects far more poorly on the accuser than the accused. Get a clue.

Get a clue said the morally clueless fool. Crashing an airplane into buildings is the worst offense. Both offenses are offenses committed by moral lepers and slime. While one offense is greater than the other both are committed by the same kind of pigs. You either become what you fear or you take the harder journey to ethics and morality. You either stand for truth and justice or you stand for pig shit, like our enemy. When you become them they have won. But you don't want to see the real war and test you have to meet because you are morally weak and don't have what it takes to win. Yours is a race to see who can be the last standing loser.

And here comes Moonie with his favorite accusation of someone being morally bankrupt. One might suspect he does that because of his own moral bankruptcy and his penchant to atone for that fault by playing the morality card as a sort of compensation.

I love psychology, Moonie. It can be used to gen up a suspect motivation behind just about anything. It's fun pulling accusations out of your ass too...isn't it?

You know next to nothing about psychology except your big fat ego says you do. You can gin up anything at all because you have no core beliefs and no moral center. You are a leaf in the breeze whose opinion varies depending on whether yours or your neighbor's ox got gored. Your fun is in your unsubstantiated imagination and a lack of ethical restraint. You are a loser with an ego substitute for real self respect. You have no idea how sad you really are. Poor poor chicken. I see into your dark, my friend and there's nothing that can change it. Poor poor emotionally stunted chicken. Nothing but a nasty beast hiding a sad molested little boy like the Wizard of OZ, and behind all that the image of God that was soiled. Poor poor chicken has lost his way.

Feel better now that you've employed your own form of torture, Moonie? I bet all those stabs and jabs were cathartic for you. No doubt they help to reinforce the insecure notion of your own moral superiority over everyone else because you would never advocate such things. Heck, you'd rather see thousands of Americans crushed into pancakes, burned alive, and beheaded instead rather than have one demented fool suffer for 30 seconds because we all know that torture is baaaaaadddd!

:roll:

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: chucky2
Where did this notion crop up that when we get these high value detainees, that we torture them just because they did bad things to us in the past?

The whole point of deciding to go past the point of humane interrogation by torturing is not to force atonement, it's to prevent more harm coming to innocent people. That's it, The end. Whoever's thinking this is being done for Friday Movie Night at the local CIA office is off their rocker and needs to get a grip...

This is why these techniques are not employed on a daily basis to foot soldiers (even though they probably could be to the benefit of tactical knowledge), but rather only in cases deemed necessary - and that's cleared way high up, so it's going to be extra special cases by virtue of even putting the question to those higher placed people.

This is not, Waterboarding: It's Always Necessary, or, Waterboarding: It's Almost Always Necessary.

Chuck

Very good post.

I think that the replies condemning it on the grounds of "they are evil" is a defensive response to TLC and others claiming that they are evil and we shouldn't care what happens to them at all because of it.

I can appreciate the thought process and rationale that you described but still cannot get past the moral objections that I have against the techniques and the loss of valuable resources being diverted based on the information gathered may be false just as likely as it is true just to get the "treatment" to stop.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Heck, you'd rather see thousands of Americans crushed into pancakes, burned alive, and beheaded instead rather than have one demented fool suffer for 30 seconds because we all know that torture is baaaaaadddd!

:roll:

I guess we'll see if these tactics become so accepted they spread to treatment of criminal suspects in domestic matters. It's a 1984 scenario, but that sort of thinking has to start somewhere. If it's ok to torture terrorists to save lives, why not a kidnapper who is captured and knows where his buddies are keeping the victim held? Torturing him will likely save lives. Cops (many of whom are ex-military) will look at the military interrogations as say, if they can do it to save people, why shouldn't we?

Instead of trying to draw murky lines between enemy combatant and foreign national, one of which is supposedly ok to torture and the other not, I'm more comfortable sticking to the one category which we are all part of and which doesn't require line drawing: we're all people, and you don't torture a person.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: sirjonk

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Heck, you'd rather see thousands of Americans crushed into pancakes, burned alive, and beheaded instead rather than have one demented fool suffer for 30 seconds because we all know that torture is baaaaaadddd!

:roll:

I guess we'll see if these tactics become so accepted they spread to treatment of criminal suspects in domestic matters. It's a 1984 scenario, but that sort of thinking has to start somewhere. If it's ok to torture terrorists to save lives, why not a kidnapper who is captured and knows where his buddies are keeping the victim held? Torturing him will likely save lives. Cops (many of whom are ex-military) will look at the military interrogations as say, if they can do it to save people, why shouldn't we?

Cops have their own interrogation methods to extract information. They usually have the luxury of time as well to wear a suspect down. Additionally, it's unlikely we captured that kidnapper on a field of battle.

Instead of trying to draw murky lines between enemy combatant and foreign national, one of which is supposedly ok to torture and the other not, I'm more comfortable sticking to the one category which we are all part of and which doesn't require line drawing: we're all people, and you don't torture a person.

It makes it easier for us to believe that every situation can be lumped into one big category and filed away. The real world just isn't that simple though and never has been. If it is that simple then explain why one murderer should get a life sentence while another gets a death sentence.

I believe it's called extenuating circumstances.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Think a bit more about the anology. This guy is pounding on his girlfriend and my friend takes him out with a single blow. Abu Zubaydah was involved in crashing airplanes into buildings and killing thousands of people so we waterboard him. Which is the worse offense in your opinion, waterboarding or crashing airplanes into buildings?

Sorry, but the argument that "We are just as bad as them." just doesn't fly. It's nothing more than poor reasoning meant to impart guilt because if you think even the least bit about that claim even a kindergartener can understand that we are not anywhere close to being as bad as they are. There's no contest in that regard. Ultimately that makes that claim nothing more than hyperbole and appears to be almost a method of aplogizing for those who would gladly do vile and sinister things to any of us if they had the chance.

Guys in case you were wondering, it appears that two wrongs DO in fact make a right.

Saying you shouldn't torture people has literally NOTHING to do with who you are torturing or why. It has everything to do with if you are the type of person or society that thinks torturing people is okay. Maybe you do... but I don't and I don't think any decent person should either.

Lame. It's a poor argument to attempt to lump all torture together and use the "OMG! He's pro-torture." accusation. I've already addressed that issue and tactic in this thread. Stop wasting your breath with that kind of bullshit. I realize it's a common tactic for you in here, but you still haven't figured out that it reflects far more poorly on the accuser than the accused. Get a clue.

Get a clue said the morally clueless fool. Crashing an airplane into buildings is the worst offense. Both offenses are offenses committed by moral lepers and slime. While one offense is greater than the other both are committed by the same kind of pigs. You either become what you fear or you take the harder journey to ethics and morality. You either stand for truth and justice or you stand for pig shit, like our enemy. When you become them they have won. But you don't want to see the real war and test you have to meet because you are morally weak and don't have what it takes to win. Yours is a race to see who can be the last standing loser.

And here comes Moonie with his favorite accusation of someone being morally bankrupt. One might suspect he does that because of his own moral bankruptcy and his penchant to atone for that fault by playing the morality card as a sort of compensation.

I love psychology, Moonie. It can be used to gen up a suspect motivation behind just about anything. It's fun pulling accusations out of your ass too...isn't it?

You know next to nothing about psychology except your big fat ego says you do. You can gin up anything at all because you have no core beliefs and no moral center. You are a leaf in the breeze whose opinion varies depending on whether yours or your neighbor's ox got gored. Your fun is in your unsubstantiated imagination and a lack of ethical restraint. You are a loser with an ego substitute for real self respect. You have no idea how sad you really are. Poor poor chicken. I see into your dark, my friend and there's nothing that can change it. Poor poor emotionally stunted chicken. Nothing but a nasty beast hiding a sad molested little boy like the Wizard of OZ, and behind all that the image of God that was soiled. Poor poor chicken has lost his way.

Feel better now that you've employed your own form of torture, Moonie? I bet all those stabs and jabs were cathartic for you. No doubt they help to reinforce the insecure notion of your own moral superiority over everyone else because you would never advocate such things. Heck, you'd rather see thousands of Americans crushed into pancakes, burned alive, and beheaded instead rather than have one demented fool suffer for 30 seconds because we all know that torture is baaaaaadddd!

:roll:

I am not in the slightest insecure about my moral superiority. I would gladly give you the same if you had the grip to hold it.

psalmus David Dominus reget me et nihil mihi deerit

in loco pascuae ibi me conlocavit super aquam refectionis educavit me

animam meam convertit deduxit me super semitas iustitiae propter nomen suum

nam et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis non timebo mala quoniam tu mecum es virga tua et baculus tuus ipsa me consolata sunt

parasti in conspectu meo mensam adversus eos qui tribulant me inpinguasti in oleo caput meum et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est

et misericordia tua subsequitur me omnibus diebus vitae meae et ut inhabitem in domo Domini in longitudinem dierum

 

[jonks]

Armed Forces Journal weighs in:

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/12/3230108

TO RUDY GIULIANI AND ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE MICHAEL MUKASEY
For their tacit support of waterboarding. In an interview, Giuliani was asked for his views on using ?enhanced interrogation techniques,? including waterboarding. He responded that in a hypothetical scenario that assumed an attack, ?I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they can think of.? Prompted again on the specific use of waterboarding, he repeated ?every method they could think of.? Mukasey said he found waterboarding to be ?repugnant,? but he wouldn?t answer whether it amounted to torture.

Let AFJ be crystal clear on a subject where these men are opaque: Waterboarding is a torture technique that has its history rooted in the Spanish Inquisition. In 1947, the U.S. prosecuted a Japanese military officer for carrying out a form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian during World War II.

Waterboarding inflicts on its victims the terror of imminent death. And as with all torture techniques, it is, therefore, an inherently flawed method for gaining reliable information. In short, it doesn?t work. That blunt truth means all U.S. leaders, present and future, should be clear on the issue.