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Is waterboarding torture?
- Thread starter EnderJE
- Start date
needtogetarmy
CEO of Project Mayhem
Yes, but I don't give a shit.
It saves innocent lives.
F**k liberals sissies.
It saves innocent lives.
F**k liberals sissies.
needtogetarmy
CEO of Project Mayhem
EnderJE said:
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
If someone kidnapped my loved ones, or had a bomb and threatened to kill innocents, I would do whatever it takes to save them. Even if it meant gassing them.
The bad guys don't deserve sympathy. People who commit acts of terrorism need to be aware that if they get caught, they could be interrogated, and be tortured. It is one of the risks involved in their line of work.
Absolutely. Terrorists should be punished.The Old Vet said:
However, people have a habit of getting arrested for the wrong reason. The fear with torture (and capital punishment) is getting the wrong person.
Don't get me wrong though. If someone hurt my kids, sure I'd threaten the water supply of the local village...then go after the people. The water supply thing was just a cartoony super villian thing to try out.
needtogetarmy
CEO of Project Mayhem
EnderJE said:Absolutely. Terrorists should be punished.
However, people have a habit of getting arrested for the wrong reason. The fear with torture (and capital punishment) is getting the wrong person.
Don't get me wrong though. If someone hurt my kids, sure I'd threaten the water supply of the local village...then go after the people. The water supply thing was just a cartoony super villian thing to try out.
I agree 100%.
It can really suck if the wrong person is taken.
Also, I do not think torture should be permitted on normal criminals. It takes extreme circumstance (i.e. hostage situations, bombs, real crazy shit!) to justify torture.
feisty11975
New member
EnderJE said:
sup?
feisty11975
New member
EnderJE said:
painful. How bout for you? hahahahaha
Pat_McCrotch
New member
feisty11975 said:
feisty11975
New member
SugarTits said:
digimon7068
New member
i dunno. . .but ever since my knees went south on me, wakeboarding sure as hell is. . .
chewyxrage
New member
of course it is
and I don't give a fuck
and I don't give a fuck
digimon7068
New member
chewyxrage said:
agreed. . .
needtogetarmy
CEO of Project Mayhem
EnderJE said:
nah. Genocide is much better. Then we never need to worry about them again.
?
I'm in, I'm holding a waterboarding party this weekend. I'm also suggesting Fear Factor comes back with a two hour celebrity special with this as a timed challenge.
I'm in, I'm holding a waterboarding party this weekend. I'm also suggesting Fear Factor comes back with a two hour celebrity special with this as a timed challenge.
I think torture is a retarded way to obtain information. I can't believe they haven't concocted drugs that are far more effective at making people spill the truth. Load 'em up with sodium pentathol and hook their asses up to a lie detector if nothing else. Water torture? Fuck me take us back in time about 500 years. Shit, they used to dunk witches, too. If she sank, she was an innocent woman, if she floated she was a witch and they took her to the stake, Win-Win.
Think about it, you cannot torture fanatics enough, they just become more convinced of their philosophies if anything. These people find the concept of blowing themselves and innocent people UP as being perfectly acceptable. How the HELL do you torture the truth out of them? It's virtually USELESS.
Torture only succeeds in making the person being tortured tell the inquisitor what they want to hear, which is NOT necessarily the truth (ergo, 100,000+ men, women and children who were executed for the crime of witchcraft and consorting with the devil). Torture is just fucking stupid and beyond barbaric. Drug their asses up so they're incapable of lying, politely question them, rinse and repeat.
Think about it, you cannot torture fanatics enough, they just become more convinced of their philosophies if anything. These people find the concept of blowing themselves and innocent people UP as being perfectly acceptable. How the HELL do you torture the truth out of them? It's virtually USELESS.
Torture only succeeds in making the person being tortured tell the inquisitor what they want to hear, which is NOT necessarily the truth (ergo, 100,000+ men, women and children who were executed for the crime of witchcraft and consorting with the devil). Torture is just fucking stupid and beyond barbaric. Drug their asses up so they're incapable of lying, politely question them, rinse and repeat.
patsfan1379
New member
Jack Bauer baby.
aaron_everette
New member
Cal_21 said:
That would be a great idea to put on T-shirts. lol
I waterboard for fun!!! lol
nimbus
New member
Vagabino said:
Of course using it to obtain confessions is just silly. But as for getting info, i'm not sure if you can have the presence of mind to completely make shit up when you think you're gonna die and you're scared absolutely shitless of more waterboarding. If we were getting bad info i feel like would've stopped using it
nimbus said:
From a book, quote on torture "When you know you are going to undergo torture, lie. Lie constantly, lie creatively. There will come a time when you tell the truth, but by then you will have muddied the waters so badly that they will not know whether to believe or not."
Think operatives haven't read the book?!
aaron_everette
New member
jestro said:
After getting the terrorist to confess. Throw his ass back in a cell and go check if his information is legit. If its not, back to waterboarding until he tells the truth. He will eventually either tell the truth or drown. His choice.
Sean Scott
New member
The Old Vet said:Yes, but I don't give a shit.
It saves innocent lives.
F**k liberals sissies.
This is the truth
If you have the "whatever it is" to strap a bomb to a 5-year old and tell that little kid to go run into a crowd then push the button on the bomb, you will say ANYTHING while you're getting dunked.nimbus said:
Torture only makes the people doing the torture happy. As a means to effectively gather information, it's useless, particularly when used against spiritual FANATICS.
This is not like the average person who isn't indoctrinated in a concept. These nuts live and breath their beliefs. Fanatics are not right in the head. What do you have to lose if you believe that by doing what your religious/spiritual brothers advise you to say/do you will go to heaven for eternity? What's a little physical suffering in THIS plane versus eternal bliss?
And when it comes to torture the CIA are amateurs. A little pressing under a half ton or so, a little breaking on the wheel, explode a few fingers with thumb screws, dislocate shoulders via strappado, now we're getting somewhere. Dig out an iron maiden from some museum's basement, warm up one of those nice toture chairs and invite them to have a seat ...
Applaude torture and you're only ONE step away from hoping to see someone crucified for their crimes. By now people should know better. It's not effective, and in the end it's every bit as evil as the crimes you're accusing your enemy of.
Okay, this thought occurred to me, just stop and think for a minute:
Let's say that someone was torturing YOU, and if you spilled your guts someone you loved more than your own life (your kid, your spouse, your parent, your best friend), would be killed. What would it take for you to tell the truth? How much would they have to do to you? Or would you rather die yourself, no matter how horrible it was?
That's why torturing fanatics is useless. They love their ideal more than they love anything else.
Let's say that someone was torturing YOU, and if you spilled your guts someone you loved more than your own life (your kid, your spouse, your parent, your best friend), would be killed. What would it take for you to tell the truth? How much would they have to do to you? Or would you rather die yourself, no matter how horrible it was?
That's why torturing fanatics is useless. They love their ideal more than they love anything else.
aaron_everette
New member
musclemom said:
So how can we aquire information from suspects? Are we just supposed to ask them if they know anything and thats it. Just send them back to their cell with the conclusion that since we asked nicely and they didnt talk they will probably never talk? Waterboarding or any means of torture may not work with some but it could with others.
So if 1 out of 10 terrorist give up information from being tortured, that leads to saving the life of even just 1 soldier, I believe that it is worth it. The other 9 that are still not giving up the information we need deserve to be tortured. Because they are holding information that is hurting our country's security. So what if it is cruel, how cruel is it if one holds information regarding another attack like 9/11. Think of all the people that would be suffering then. I bet a lot of people would be singing a different song then.
Better living through chemistry, sugar, in other words: D-R-U-G-S. There's TONS of shit that disconnect your conscious from your subconscious mind and the worst side effect is a headache afterwards.aaron_everette said:
Physical torture is wrong, there is no justification or excuse for it. All it succeeds in doing is fueling the other guy's anger. For every life that may or may not be saved with that information, tens or hundreds more are endangered by the hatred that torture fuels. Torture is not committed in a vaccuum. All waterboarding is doing is making us hated by the world at large, and the Moslem community in particular. It turns Americans into monsters.
Using torture on prisoners doesn't end the war faster, if anything it perpetuates it. We should treat the prisoners the way we want our people treated if they are captured.
aaron_everette
New member
musclemom said:
I agree that chemistry would be the best way. They would be able to obtain creditable information a lot faster this way. If these methods are available then why aren't they being practiced?
I would actually like to know the answer to that question myself. The most LOGICAL reason, IMO, is that they actually DO use that method, and the prisoners are telling them the truth, but the truth isn't what they want to hear or what they think the prisoner should know, so they resort to more barbaric methods, and the prisoner, conscious, agrees with whatever they want to hear under torture.aaron_everette said:
There's a very old axiom, the truth isn't half as exciting as fiction.
Look, you know how many people confessed to heresy/witchcraft/consorting with the devil under torture? The TRUTH was these poor farm folk knew about as much witchcraft as I know nuclear science. But they told their inquisitors that, and nobody believed them. When they were finally so broken they said, yes, they'd fucked the devil, the torture stopped. Same shit. The truth is boring and most people who are willing to resort to torture aren't intelligent enough to realize this basic fact.
nimbus
New member
musclemom said:
you're dead wrong about waterboarding; the objective isn't revenge or sadism. The cia wouldn't waterboard if it didn't serve a strategic benefit. why waste time, money, and effort?
you don't know shit about what is effective and what isn't, because you aren't in the CIA. you;re also a shitty citizen if you don't believe in using intense interrogation methods to protect your countrymen from foreign threats.
obviously truth drugs would be ideal but those must not be a mature technology yet or else we'd be using them exclusively. The notion that you have of the government missing out on valuable intel. by sitting on truth chemicals because they'd rather inflict suffering is completely laughable
Yes, I'm sure they're much smarter than thatnimbus said:
I mean, it's their intelligence that warned us of the planes on 9/11 and have found Usama and told us about all those WMDs? They must be brilliant and their methods infallable, I mean, just look at the terrific people that have headed that agency over the years
Bunch of fuckedup James Bond wannabes.
nimbus
New member
musclemom said:Yes, I'm sure they're much smarter than that
They must be brilliant and their methods infallable, I mean, just look at the terrific people that have headed that agency over the years
Bunch of fuckedup James Bond wannabes.
i guarantee that if you randomly chose 5 people to be in charge of the CIA or hold positions with significant responsibilities there, this country would be ravaged by the hordes within 5 years. You have to be pretty fucking smart to have a job there as something besides a janitor
This article was printed in the Washington Post a few years ago. It says what I'm saying, and THESE people are experienced in this stuff, unlike any of us who are sitting here speculating:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html
Just for a moment, let's pretend that there is no moral, legal or constitutional problem with torture. Let's also imagine a clear-cut case: a terrorist who knows where bombs are about to explode in Iraq. To stop him, it seems that a wide range of Americans would be prepared to endorse "cruel and unusual" methods. In advance of confirmation hearings for Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales last week, the Wall Street Journal argued that such scenarios must be debated, since "what's at stake in this controversy is nothing less than the ability of U.S. forces to interrogate enemies who want to murder innocent civilians." Alan Dershowitz, the liberal legal scholar, has argued in the past that interrogators in such a case should get a "torture warrant" from a judge. Both of these arguments rest on an assumption: that torture -- defined as physical pressure during interrogation -- can be used to extract useful information.
But does torture work? The question has been asked many times since Sept. 11, 2001. I'm repeating it, however, because the Gonzales hearings inspired more articles about our lax methods ("Too Nice for Our Own Good" was one headline), because similar comments may follow this week's trial of Spec. Charles Graner, the alleged Abu Ghraib ringleader, and because I still cannot find a positive answer. I've heard it said that the Syrians and the Egyptians "really know how to get these things done." I've heard the Israelis mentioned, without proof. I've heard Algeria mentioned, too, but Darius Rejali, an academic who recently trolled through French archives, found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria -- and they lost that war anyway. "Liberals," argued an article in the liberal online magazine Slate a few months ago, "have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, the argument that torture is ineffective." But it's also true that "realists," whether liberal or conservative, have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, fictitious accounts of effective torture carried out by someone else.
By contrast, it is easy to find experienced U.S. officers who argue precisely the opposite. Meet, for example, retired Air Force Col. John Rothrock, who, as a young captain, headed a combat interrogation team in Vietnam. More than once he was faced with a ticking time-bomb scenario: a captured Vietcong guerrilla who knew of plans to kill Americans. What was done in such cases was "not nice," he says. "But we did not physically abuse them." Rothrock used psychology, the shock of capture and of the unexpected. Once, he let a prisoner see a wounded comrade die. Yet -- as he remembers saying to the "desperate and honorable officers" who wanted him to move faster -- "if I take a Bunsen burner to the guy's genitals, he's going to tell you just about anything," which would be pointless. Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn't know "any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea."
Or listen to Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the "batting average" might be lower: "perhaps six out of ten." And if you beat up the remaining four? "They'll just tell you anything to get you to stop."
Worse, you'll have the other side effects of torture. It "endangers our soldiers on the battlefield by encouraging reciprocity." It does "damage to our country's image" and undermines our credibility in Iraq. That, in the long run, outweighs any theoretical benefit. Herrington's confidential Pentagon report, which he won't discuss but which was leaked to The Post a month ago, goes farther. In that document, he warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees in Iraq, that their activities could be "making gratuitous enemies" and that prisoner abuse "is counterproductive to the Coalition's efforts to win the cooperation of the Iraqi citizenry." Far from rescuing Americans, in other words, the use of "special methods" might help explain why the war is going so badly.
An up-to-date illustration of the colonel's point appeared in recently released FBI documents from the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. These show, among other things, that some military intelligence officers wanted to use harsher interrogation methods than the FBI did. As a result, complained one inspector, "every time the FBI established a rapport with a detainee, the military would step in and the detainee would stop being cooperative." So much for the utility of torture.
Given the overwhelmingly negative evidence, the really interesting question is not whether torture works but why so many people in our society want to believe that it works. At the moment, there is a myth in circulation, a fable that goes something like this: Radical terrorists will take advantage of our fussy legality, so we may have to suspend it to beat them. Radical terrorists mock our namby-pamby prisons, so we must make them tougher. Radical terrorists are nasty, so to defeat them we have to be nastier.
Perhaps it's reassuring to tell ourselves tales about the new forms of "toughness" we need, or to talk about the special rules we will create to defeat this special enemy. Unfortunately, that toughness is self-deceptive and self-destructive. Ultimately it will be self-defeating as well.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html
Just for a moment, let's pretend that there is no moral, legal or constitutional problem with torture. Let's also imagine a clear-cut case: a terrorist who knows where bombs are about to explode in Iraq. To stop him, it seems that a wide range of Americans would be prepared to endorse "cruel and unusual" methods. In advance of confirmation hearings for Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales last week, the Wall Street Journal argued that such scenarios must be debated, since "what's at stake in this controversy is nothing less than the ability of U.S. forces to interrogate enemies who want to murder innocent civilians." Alan Dershowitz, the liberal legal scholar, has argued in the past that interrogators in such a case should get a "torture warrant" from a judge. Both of these arguments rest on an assumption: that torture -- defined as physical pressure during interrogation -- can be used to extract useful information.
But does torture work? The question has been asked many times since Sept. 11, 2001. I'm repeating it, however, because the Gonzales hearings inspired more articles about our lax methods ("Too Nice for Our Own Good" was one headline), because similar comments may follow this week's trial of Spec. Charles Graner, the alleged Abu Ghraib ringleader, and because I still cannot find a positive answer. I've heard it said that the Syrians and the Egyptians "really know how to get these things done." I've heard the Israelis mentioned, without proof. I've heard Algeria mentioned, too, but Darius Rejali, an academic who recently trolled through French archives, found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria -- and they lost that war anyway. "Liberals," argued an article in the liberal online magazine Slate a few months ago, "have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, the argument that torture is ineffective." But it's also true that "realists," whether liberal or conservative, have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, fictitious accounts of effective torture carried out by someone else.
By contrast, it is easy to find experienced U.S. officers who argue precisely the opposite. Meet, for example, retired Air Force Col. John Rothrock, who, as a young captain, headed a combat interrogation team in Vietnam. More than once he was faced with a ticking time-bomb scenario: a captured Vietcong guerrilla who knew of plans to kill Americans. What was done in such cases was "not nice," he says. "But we did not physically abuse them." Rothrock used psychology, the shock of capture and of the unexpected. Once, he let a prisoner see a wounded comrade die. Yet -- as he remembers saying to the "desperate and honorable officers" who wanted him to move faster -- "if I take a Bunsen burner to the guy's genitals, he's going to tell you just about anything," which would be pointless. Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn't know "any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea."
Or listen to Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a military intelligence specialist who conducted interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq during Desert Storm, and who was sent by the Pentagon in 2003 -- long before Abu Ghraib -- to assess interrogations in Iraq. Aside from its immorality and its illegality, says Herrington, torture is simply "not a good way to get information." In his experience, nine out of 10 people can be persuaded to talk with no "stress methods" at all, let alone cruel and unusual ones. Asked whether that would be true of religiously motivated fanatics, he says that the "batting average" might be lower: "perhaps six out of ten." And if you beat up the remaining four? "They'll just tell you anything to get you to stop."
Worse, you'll have the other side effects of torture. It "endangers our soldiers on the battlefield by encouraging reciprocity." It does "damage to our country's image" and undermines our credibility in Iraq. That, in the long run, outweighs any theoretical benefit. Herrington's confidential Pentagon report, which he won't discuss but which was leaked to The Post a month ago, goes farther. In that document, he warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees in Iraq, that their activities could be "making gratuitous enemies" and that prisoner abuse "is counterproductive to the Coalition's efforts to win the cooperation of the Iraqi citizenry." Far from rescuing Americans, in other words, the use of "special methods" might help explain why the war is going so badly.
An up-to-date illustration of the colonel's point appeared in recently released FBI documents from the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. These show, among other things, that some military intelligence officers wanted to use harsher interrogation methods than the FBI did. As a result, complained one inspector, "every time the FBI established a rapport with a detainee, the military would step in and the detainee would stop being cooperative." So much for the utility of torture.
Given the overwhelmingly negative evidence, the really interesting question is not whether torture works but why so many people in our society want to believe that it works. At the moment, there is a myth in circulation, a fable that goes something like this: Radical terrorists will take advantage of our fussy legality, so we may have to suspend it to beat them. Radical terrorists mock our namby-pamby prisons, so we must make them tougher. Radical terrorists are nasty, so to defeat them we have to be nastier.
Perhaps it's reassuring to tell ourselves tales about the new forms of "toughness" we need, or to talk about the special rules we will create to defeat this special enemy. Unfortunately, that toughness is self-deceptive and self-destructive. Ultimately it will be self-defeating as well.
If you believe in torture, then great! If you don't see the problem with torture, then great. Whatever works for you. I won't shit on you.
But, then don't shit on me if I don't believe it and believe planes flying into buildings is equally as exciting as a friend of mine who loved watching planes dropping bombs on villages in third world countries. I think it's bloodlust with him. I just find it ironic on some level.
But, then don't shit on me if I don't believe it and believe planes flying into buildings is equally as exciting as a friend of mine who loved watching planes dropping bombs on villages in third world countries. I think it's bloodlust with him. I just find it ironic on some level.
digimon7068
New member
you know what IS torture??
a bunch of people on the top floors of the world trade center, knowing they were going to die, and waiting for it to happen. . .
a bunch of people jumping out the windows of the world trade center because it was preferable to burning to death. . .
a bunch of people on the top floors of the world trade center, knowing they were going to die, and waiting for it to happen. . .
a bunch of people jumping out the windows of the world trade center because it was preferable to burning to death. . .
