Waterboarding Precedents

[jbeukema]

*shamelessly stolen form another site to seed the forums at TAR*

[QUOTE=catzmeow;1187386]

During the Spanish-American War, a U.S. soldier, Major Edwin Glenn, was suspended from command for one month and fined $50 for using "the water cure." In his review, the Army judge advocate said the charges constituted "resort to torture with a view to extort a confession." He recommended disapproval because "the United States cannot afford to sanction the addition of torture."

In the war crimes tribunals that followed Japan's defeat in World War II, the issue of waterboarding was sometimes raised. In 1947, the U.S. charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post ran a front-page photo of a U.S. soldier supervising the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. The caption said the technique induced "a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk." The picture led to an Army investigation and, two months later, the court martial of the soldier....
Waterboarding: A Tortured History : NPR

[thumbelina]

Why are you using NPR.org as a source for waterboarding?

[WhiteAfricanAmerican]

Cos he has a hard time finding legit sources to justify limpwristed position.

[Rob]

I don't think "The Water Cure" is the same as "Water-Boarding"... apparently the cure to water is to drink it (FYI for the terrorists)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cure

[jbeukema]

thumb: Someone else posted it at another board and I figured I'd see if anyone here had some responses

WAA: Once again, you go for personal attacks when you have no resonse. Super-lame

[WhiteAfricanAmerican]

WAA: Once again, you go for personal attacks when you have no resonse. Super-lame

Hmmmf, my comments don't even approach the level of personal attacks you've leveled against some on this board.

If you can't take it, don't dish it out.

As for me not having a response: we've already argued this point. My position hasn't changed. There's no need to reargue it.

You have a limpwristed perspective on dealing with the architects of 9/11, I don't.

[Peace_by_superior _power]

You have a limpwristed perspective on dealing with the architects of 9/11, I don't.

That I have to disagree with. I saw this awhile back and I agree with it 100%.

There was a dramatic encounter during the floor debate last week when Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, spoke out against the legislation, saying there was no need for it because, as he put it, the detainees are not prisoners of war, “they are terrorists.”

Senator McCain, of Arizona, argued that the debate “is not about who they are. It’s about who we are.”

http://www.jakobrutqvist.net/?p=680

I have to agree with it. Let us take the moral high ground and let them be the bad guys.

[WhiteAfricanAmerican]

Ok Peace, at what cost? Are you prepared to accept any fallout from that position.

Cheney is on the record stating that info gleaned from Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) thwarted many other attacks, one of which (known as the 2nd wave) was supposed to have wreaked as much damage as 9/11.

Are you willing to accept the fact that not interrogating people like KSM, has the great potential of allowing more of your fellow citizens to die in some gruesome manner?

This isn't an ethical or moral standpoint, I don't care what the left or the right say. This deals with the safety of our citizens, and with respect to terrorists who willfully flaunt the Laws of Armed Combat and the Geneva Conventions, they should be shown the same disregard.

Our morals are secured by ensuring that we are not the first to engage in questionable activities, basically playing by the rules until such time as our enemy violates those same rules.

We further firewall ourselves by not engaging in wanton torture, like:
Burning people with blow torches
Feeding people feet first into a wood chipper
Cutting fingers, toes, arms, legs, heads off with blunt knives.
Maiming or disfiguring people.

Things like that.

Like I said before, the majority of what KSM went through, I went through during basic training.

It's sad because a legitimate interrogation method is now thrown to the way side because people are afraid to get their hands dirty. What KSM went through is a walk in the park compared to what McCain went through, and it saddening because McCain knows this, yet he's playing political football with it.

Can KSM lift both his hands above his head? McCain can't.
Does KSM have to have fake teeth because most of his were broken out? McCain does?

KSM wasn't tortured. What he went through doesn't even approach torture. Doesn't matter how it's spun. The fact is waterboarding is not torture.

[jbeukema]

Can KSM lift both his hands above his head? McCain can't.
Does KSM have to have fake teeth because most of his were broken out? McCain does?

Are you saying John McCain recognizes torture when he sees it?

[WhiteAfricanAmerican]

McCain is a political operative, and in that arena, anything is fair game, even selling your soul.

You have a weak argument, as usual. It's better that you stick to things you think you know and understand. In this instance, you don't know anything.

[Aurelius]

This can be summarized as a Whitey knows best topic of discussion. As some members of the military receive waterboarding, sleep deprivation, panic situations, and other interrogation techniques for a few days (unlike the detainees who experience this for months on end) and Whitey was a member of his country's military you simply cannot do anything but accept his view as the unflappable truth.

[WhiteAfricanAmerican]

This can be summarized as a Whitey knows best topic of discussion. As some members of the military receive waterboarding, sleep deprivation, panic situations, and other interrogation techniques for a few days (unlike the detainees who experience this for months on end) and Whitey was a member of his country's military you simply cannot do anything but accept his view as the unflappable truth.

Translation: I don't have anything valid to rebut with, so I'll obfuscate. Hopefully no one realises it.

Put it this way Aurelius, I'd pay more attention to what you have to say on the subject than JB.

Riddle me this:

Had KSM spilled the beans after his first interrogation, do you think the waterboarding and other interrogation techniques would have continued?

[scarymary]

Maybe they should have broken a few bones..........then the left would have had something valid to whine about. This is the most absurd thing I have ever heard in my life. I will ask this one more time..........how does the left reconcile this (in the name of elevating the moral status of our country) with a country that not only performs abortions on a daily basis, but funds other countries to do the same? I am not trying to turn this into an argument about abortion. I am only trying equate what some call torture techniques used on a grown man who was free to make his choices to what happens during the abortion process. No matter how the left try to paint this, I would argue that they most certainly have their priorities confused.

[WhiteAfricanAmerican]

Here's something the limpwrists don't take into consideration......if waterboarding is so heinous why did it take 182 unsuccessful attempts before KSM threw in the towel.

Imho it can't be very painful if KSM withstood that many applications

[RightisRightLeftisWrong]

Whats the big deal about water boarding? I mean seriously who gives a rats ass; if they call that torture than sign me up. I'd much rather get water boarded than having my fingers or hands cut off, or just the head. Is this what the world has come down to? Has the pusification of America come to this? I think what Stalin or Hitler did is torture what we are doing is almost a joke. OH NO THEY PUT A BUG IN MY ROOM, which actually worked btw.

When you decree that something like a simple water boarding or putting a bug in someones room as heinous then the terrorist win. It's no wonder the terrorist cells are starting to go active agian.