Torture?
 

1. How do you guys feel about all this talk of the U.S. torturing detainees?

2. Do you support the U.S. torturing detainees? If so will you be outraged if another country tortures a U.S. citizen or military person?

3. Should people within the previous administration be held accountable for torturing since it's against international law?

I know those are loaded questions, but let's give it a shot. I have mixed thoughts on all three of the questions so I'll hold off.

1. About time they start doing it!
2. Yes, i do support it. They've done that too so why can't we?
3. It's actually against the Geneva Convention

Torture often gets false confessions, the detainees will often start saying whatever the interrogators want to hear just to get them to stop.

All it results in is a bunch of information that may or may not be true.

Personally i think there are better ways

1) I don't see a problem with what the Bush Administration did with this subject.

2) Waterboarding does not bother me all. U.S. prisoners of war have been brutally tortured and murdered in Iraq and Vietnam.

3) Obama is ruining our national security already, awesome.

Most of this forum is Republican, not all, but take a look at this discussion between Sean Hannity and Dick Morris...

VIDEO

Here is part of the discussion which I found interesting.

MORRIS: What he likes about this country is they elected him. That's about it. But you know, in this whole torture discussion, nobody is talking about what these examinations gave us. There was a plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and we learned about it because the wiretaps with no warrants picked up that mention.

And Kelly, the police commissioner, flooded the bridge with cops and found out where you would have to stand to go about knocking down the bridge and that it was feasible. Then Khalid — Sheikh Khalid Mohammed, under his 118th waterboarding or something, told us the name of the guy that was going to knock down the bridge.

They raided his apartment in Brooklyn and found the diagram.

HANNITY: Yes.

MORRIS: ... that correctly told him how they go about doing it.

HANNITY: And Dick, they also discovered a terror cell that was here in America as a result of the enhanced techniques. They also discovered a plot for Los Angeles.


BUSH'S METHOD SAVED U.S. LIVES. PERIOD.

torture? nah...just kill 'em all. that will solve the terrorist problem 100%.

I personally don't agree with it... They shouldn't have preached not torturing people if there were doing it. Set the example...

Pretty simple concept

The Bush administration swore up and down lied to American people ect about torturing detainees. They locked up US Military Personal for torturing prisoners, the indviduals in photographs ect were either demoted, or had chargers brought upon them.

Torture isn't right, but neither is terrorism. So have the fuck at it and let some dickheads know that this shit, isn't going to fly. Personally, I'd kill anything that moves, I don't give a shit about women and children over there, not while their dads or husbands are trying to kill my family, or any other american. I'd do alot worse to alot more people.

I believe in war, especially against these people, International Law is thrown out the window and actually used AGAINST US when we capture some of theirs. But when our pilot, or sniper is caught, these scumbags forget what international law is.

They behead journalists, make videos of these poor people crying for their families ect. What the fuck did the journalist do to you?

I have a issue with the Bush administration, or any other administration being crooked enough to go fuck some of our soldiers lives up because they were following DIRECT ORDERS.

Personally, I'd start by taking a set of pliers and pulling finger and toe nails out, one by one. Take a small propane torch and begin burning the bottoms of their feet, shave their heads, burn the towels on their heads, and continue the process until something was given to me.

False claims? If they are wrong, worse happens.

werd

We certainly agree here.

Fuck it, im sold!

This is the way I see it:
Who the fuck started this debate on torture in the first place? Torture has been used for years, and the nations that bitch about it commit it at times of war or to their own people (my old HS teacher came close when he went to Israel, despite being Jewish). This is one of those things that need to be silent, since no one wants to hear that we do it though it is a necessity in war. However, you have got to love that the politicians that were the most pissed off by it also approved it after being briefed by the CIA of it (such dummies like Pelosi). And yet, they deny this fact. Even better is the great names, like "enhanced interrogation techniques" that they have come up for it. Bottom line is, let our front-line people, like the Military and CIA do their job, and the politicians need to STFU and concentrate on domestic issues, like our insane debt.

1. It's 100% reprehensible. We are the shining light, it shouldn't be the shining light of losing your human rights because some asshat thought it was important to his personal fucking cause of the day.

2. Never. And yeah, if they had a nuke in NYC and torturing the guy would provide the answer, then I'm sorry but 11 million people have to die so that millions more won't have to when the revolution comes. 1 time is to much.

3. Every single person that was in the auth chain should be tried at the Hague and hanged for crimes against humanity. How can we say Darfur is a bad place, or Rwanda is a bad place or <insert bad place here> is, when we commit the most serious crimes against humanity ourselves. Torture is not ok for animals, why in the fucking world would it be ok for humans. I hope GWB and Cock Chainey both get the fucking chair. They decided it was ok to toss the bill of rights into the fire. They should be the next fuel source for the flames.

EDIT: Note that other than the torture issue I generally supported GWB. I think that Cock Chainey is a totaly fuckin' psycho though and he's not to be trusted.

Glad to see the rest of you can't practice what you preach. Can't have it both ways guys.

that

soldiers and civilians are protected by the geneva treaties....not terrorists.

soldiers must wear uniforms, to separate themselves from civilians....

hiding as a civilian, dressing like one and tagrgeting civilians is against the geneva treaties......

as soon as our enemies throw on uniforms, and stop targeting civilians....they will protected by the geneva treaties and the laws of war...

despite what the media, and those sitting behind a desk tell you.....torture does work. it has worked for thousands of years. you just have to have a guy that knows things of value.

is torture wrong? we all have to make that decision for ourselves.....but lets compare apples to apples....there is a big difference between the ethnic cleansing of sierra leone, darfur etc...and interogating a terrorist.

100 men walking into a village, raping the women, cutting off the arms of the men, killing the men.....cutting off womens breast so they cannot breast feed children.....has nothing to with water boarding a taliban fighter, that was captured in afghanistan....that 3 weeks earlier was firing an AK at US forces....

THANKYOU!!!

I bet if you brought in a hot girl, and said, you can see her naked if you tell us so and so, they'd so confess that shit.

That sounds like Howard Stern and the delivery guy game. ( $50 tip or the girl )

What's covered under what treaty that not every nation signed is totally immaterial. We are a civilized nation. Civilized people don't torture others for any reason.

Part of the pride of being free is that you take the risks associated with it. If I have to die because of my freedom, then at least I had my freedom until I died. A short life of freedom and self determination is far more valued than long life under someone's thumb. Ask anyone from Burma, Russia, Cambodia, North Korea or any of the other dozens of authoritarian countries where they get away with using "national security" as a pretense for crimes against humanity.

I think Americans are forgetting about how horrible 9/11 really was because it happened about 8 years ago.

You can't compare Stalin's tremendous amount of murders in the Soviet Union or the Khmer Rouge's 1+ million murders in Cambodia to U.S. interrogation techniques. These were mass murders of a nations own people.

How many prisoners were murdered at Gitmo? Truly uncomparable.

This whole talk about tortue is dealing with waterboarding. Yes, waterboarding, where a terrorist is dunked under water with the company of a doctor.

This talk doesn't even involve the embarassment of the Abu Ghraib prison. It is not even related the to discussion at all, and can't be used as some sort of counter argument.


So please, anyone at all, tell me what is torture and what is not? Is dunking someone under water that horrific where we cannot do it protect ourselves?

what risks are you taking for your freedom?

it is real easy to sit in front of a computer, or at the starbucks...or watch some idiot on tv spew his/her rhetoric.....but that is a luxury that you/me/we have because somehwere there are guys with rifles protecting us.

some of us are born to fight, to serve.....and some are not. unless you have seen what the world is like outside this country, unless you have seen the attrocities our enemies have done, and plan to do again...you really cannot make a rational judgement.

if you would like to "better" than others and denounce torture....fine. i for one am glad that there are some people that will do what ever is needed to protect you....even if you would denounce the way they do it.....

PS: the accepted method of "waterboarding" does not include a : board or tank of water.

I have a lot of mixed feelings on this topic, however after thinking about it since its been in the news I think torture is horrible. I don't think there is any evidence it actually works on a consistent basis, and if you have to waterboard someone 200+ times how effective is it? How reliable is the information?

My biggest issue with the whole thing is that we go around preaching to the world about what people should and shouldn't do and here we are doing exactly what we are telling others not to do. It's pretty hard for the U.S. to be a world leader when we are the biggest hypocrites around. I love this country, but no wonder the rest of the world thinks we are a bunch of assholes.

Im totally against torture because it has been proven time and time again that it provides unreliable information. There are FAR better and more effective and reliable ways to collect the information.

As a citizen of a civilized nation i find it appalling that torture of any kind is used.

And I have spent 4 years in the military and spend years overseas.

I agree 100% with R3d, this is a nation that is about preserviing and fighting for freedom. Using technical political loopholes and geographical locations to condone such methods and conduct are an insult to this country. Freedom has never been free.

We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard to demonstrate to other countrys that strength is not derived by stripping the rights away from people and holding them captive with no explanation for 5-6 years other than "we think you might be one of them". We need to show that true strength comes with integrity and humanity, not with barbaric brutality.

I would REALLY like to see how many false leads and bad information we had to shift through in order to find a single good lead from torture. Im sure if we had spent our energy with the multitude of intelligence gathering abilities we have we would have same millions of dollars and still found the same good information.

Getting good information from torture is a fluke, not the norm.

This bolded question is answered in the video I already posted.

So for those that disagree with waterboarding, please tell me another way to get information out of TERRORISTS?

HA HA....you want me to buy into what you are saying based on something fox news and that asshat sean hannity says or the person he interviews. I'm positive I can find several videos on CNN or MSNBC where they interview former CIA and FBI agents who actually did that shit and will say it doesn't work because the information isn't reliable. What happens when you waterboard some dude 100 times and he really doesn't know anything, well eventually he'll say whatever just to make you stop. That's the problem, when in distress people will say whatever it takes to get out of the situation.

I don't claim to have all the answers, if I did I'd be sitting somewhere a lot more important than where I'm sitting now. I'm not saying good old fashion police work or spy work will solve everything, but fuck it why do that when you can just torture people :rolleyes: Maybe our police departments should start torturing people for information.

So will the republican party be known as the party of torture? If so that should play out nicely in the next election

"The person he interviewed" was an advisor to president Clinton for 20 years.

You still didn't answer my question. What should we do then to extract informaton out of these terrorists?

If they waterboarded a prisoner 100times and he honestly doesn't know anything, I probably wouldn't upset (call me inhumane). It's not like these people including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, didn't kill any innocent Americans on 9/11 or anything :rolleyes:

Who cares if it was a former Clinton advisor.

I don't know the answer to your question because I'm not a trained CIA or FBI agent and neither are you so for you to say that torturing is the ONLY way is a bit narrow minded. I would assume they would use some of the same techniques they use with mobsters or any other criminal organization. Yes, I realize terrorists are different that mobsters, it was just an example.

So let me ask you a question.....You say you don't care if we waterboarded a prisoner even if they didn't know anything.....does that only pertain to middle eastern people?

i say give them a trial, give them a chance to prove they are not terrorists, if it is confirmed they are terrorists, well, we know the knowledge is in thier brain right? fastest way to get that out is to spray it all over the wall with a bullet.

i couldnt care less what information a terrorist might have, if he is proven to be a terrorist then just kill him. Im sure he would me bore than happy to sit there and give false information all day long cause he knows we would have to use money, manpower and other resources to prove it is true.

Rather than waste tax payer dollars keeping him alive, feeding him, giving him medical attention, and torturing him, spend 20 cents on a bullet, kill him, then throw his carcass in the garbage with the rest of the trash we dont care about.

we can get the information we need through other means. Torture is not a good method of obtaining good intelligence.

I'll agree, I don't know why there weren't or are any military tribunals. But I'm sure most are terrorists anyway.

People would be just upset with killing them as opposed to torture (not me, I'm pro death penalty for anything inolving murder, child rape, or even a $50 milllion ponzi scheme), but others will see it as still inhumane.

This is by far a controversial subject, but I don't think its one of the things Obama needs to worry about now. Much bigger things are on his plate now, unfortunately.

Most of these "terrorists" that are caught and tortured are usually just little pawns. Do you really think they know much of the "master" plan? They were probably told by someone else to strap this bomb on your back or go kill these people without really knowing what it was for. It's just what they were brought up believing so they go along with it. They probably could not tell you any such major targets or anything about "head" terrorists.

I am all for the quick and painless cure for terrorists... a slug to the forehead.

I agree with Jack I don't care what they know if they are proven to be a terrorist be done with it. Hell I'll pull the trigger if no one else wants to do it

I'm also pissed at how many people sit on death row for years

It cost between 40 to 90K a year for a person to sit on death row.

I'm don't know from experience but I think a bullet in the right spot is probably the most painless way to die

bullets are cheap

death row should be a 1 night stay in a tiny cell with 1 good meal a couple shots of jack and 1 shot in the forehead

Yeah death row is pretty damn ridiculous. There is only one prison in Cali that you can be put to death and it's San Quentin. I believe almost half of the inmates or so is on death row and then they complain about prisons being over filled. Easy fix for that.

It sucks that some people are on death row and are innocent. DNA should be used in ALL capital punishments cases these days.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is no pawn, he is the mastermind behind 9/11.

Unfortunately he does have to worry about it because I'm pretty sure the previous administration said they weren't doing it and then went around the world preaching about morals and humane treatment...blah blah blah.

By the way, I'm pro death penalty just so you know I'm not some hippie Kali dude. ha ha ha. The difference is people who get the dealth penalty have been convicted of a horrible crime and it was proven (most of the time). If you want to capture terrorists and it was proven in a court of law they did horrible shit and you want to kill them....fine by me.

I wouldn't mind if he somehow found an alternative way and not reduced our nation's security. I'm pretty sure the previous administration had your and my best interests (keeping us all safe) in mind when decisions were made. It's not like the Bush administration was the first administration to keep something confidental. All presidents have to do it.

He is our president, but I was saying it shouldn't be one of his top priorities right now. Don't look now because we are losing in Afghanistan now.


And I never thought you were a hippie, lol.

The whole point of trying to get intel out of the little fish is so that we know which big fish told them to strap the bomb on. The same thing goes for druggies. Most druggies just buy the drugs, but after interrogation, they spit out who sold it. Then, they interrogate that dealer in which they find out who supplies him. Then they take down the supplier. This is how you find out who's in charge, by working your way up from the foot soldier to the general. Then you take out the general and chaos ensues. The rest is then easy.

As for the doubters, if torture doesn't work, why has it been used in gathering intel for so long (since our existence)? Sure the person may spew out false information, but if they are detained and the guys come back after finding out the intel was false, you think they want to be tortured again? I will say this again, no matter what your beliefs are on this matter, you need to shut up, bite your tongue, and let the military/CIA do what it has to. This is their job and they know how to gather intel better than us. If someone knows better, they need to take over as CIA head (which at this point, anyone is more competent than Pedeta).

No offence, i really dont mean this personally or to be insulting, but did you actually take time to read what you just wrote? yes, the CIA and Homeland security DO know how to get intelligence, and they know damn good and well that torture is not going to provide dogshit compared to the cost of following up on false leads, and is one of the most unreliable sources of intel available. That is why it has been abandonded by just about every cilvilized culture.

You speak as if that is the only method for gathering intelligence. there are COUNTLESS far more effective methods.

the reason torture is so SELDOM used is because it has consistantly provided false information. Im not sure what planet you live on where torture is a normal everyday thing in civilized cultures. For the most part by most countries and civilizations it is a barbaric thing of the past that is no longer used because it doesent work for shit.


And yeah, it is easy to flip a meth-head because they are driven by thier addiction, the dealers are easy to flip because they are driven by greed and thier own personal welfare. Of course they will flip on thier suppliers.

That is because they are not religious fucking radicals who believe that if they give any information to the "infadels" that they wont get into heaven, thier view on life in this world has absolutly NOTHING to do with self preservation, it is all geared towards spiritual preservation. The more [pain they withstand they better they are treated in the afterworld, and they believed with every bit as much conviction as you believe your car has an engine in it. In thier mind they know this for fact. it is not a maatter of faith to them, to them it is a simple obvious reality.

You cant compare greedy methaddicts with strong instincts for self preservation with religious holy-war jihadists that have absolutly no value in thier own lives and eagerly welcome the opportunity to prove themselves to allah so they can reap the rewards in the afterlife.

Interrogation is all fine, but torture has ALWAYS proven to be a poor method of obtaining information.

As for the "I will say this again, no matter what your beliefs are on this matter, you need to shut up, bite your tongue, and let the military/CIA do what it has to."...

Well my grandfathers, uncles, father, mother, and myself are all veterans. I cant help but find that statement really offencive. :eek:

And you believe that no one does torture but us. Everyone tortures, problem is for some reason, it's public in the US. You think the French didn't torture in Vietnam? You think the Spanish didn't after Madrid? No one is a saint, just we failed at hiding that illusion.

Now, I respect your family, especially since I have an uncle who's been to Iraq twice. However, I fail to find my statement offensive, especially considering what politicians do to undermine the military. Washington was screwed by Congress during the revolution, Madison by certain states who didn't want to help until the British landed, Lincoln by those who wanted to let the south go, Westmoreland by those who wouldn't let him take care of the Ho-Chi-Minh trail, and I can go on. If the military is going to be effective, they need to control want needs to be done. The military knows how to fight, and politicians know how to negotiate. The last thing you want is for either to swap roles. That's when you start having problems, either w/ a military dictatorship or emperor, respectively.

Let's not forget that Bush had nothing to do w/ implementing torture (outright). This was thought out by both the CIA and military (I believe the water board creators where Air Force doctors) in which Bush simply let them do what they had to. If torture doesn't work, I would tend to believe the CIA wouldn't waste their time on false leads. However, they implemented it and it must be for a good reason. I am generally skeptical of anything coming from the government, but I don't think the CIA is willing to waste time on techniques that only waste their time.

Now, if I offended/disrespected you, I apologize. I don't mean to do so. I am however, sick of all those who act on empty principles to undermine our military. Sherman once said "War is hell." The only way to end a war is to show it in its true colors. Politicians try to cover that up, and in the end, it only shoots us in the foot.

i still disagree that torture should be used, but that is a very well said reply.

i guess i like my torture swept under the rug, at least that way we are acknowledging that it is wrong but hiding the fact it is done. When we put it in the forefront we are basically condoning such actions, and while we will always have our little dirty secrets, i prefer them to be secrets.

I agree too, I never said that it should be open. I think the idiot in the government that made it public should be shot. This is a case where if it's made public, it should be condemned but if it's still in the bag, to secretly condone it.