CIA lied to public and Congress about torture

[Revmitchell]

When we loosely attach a word like "torture" to something and then divorce it from its context it is easy to feign righteous indignation. However, what needs to be remembered here is waterboarding is not done in order to just obtain info. It is done in order to obtain info that will save people from an immediate and imminent threat. In other words to save lives. Failing to do it means people will die. If there is a moral failing it would be in refusing to do what we know will save the lives of people.

 

[Crabtownboy]

When we loosely attach a word like "torture" to something and then divorce it from its context it is easy to feign righteous indignation. However, what needs to be remembered here is waterboarding is not done in order to just obtain info. It is done in order to obtain info that will save people from an immediate and imminent threat. In other words to save lives. Failing to do it means people will die. If there is a moral failing it would be in refusing to do what we know will save the lives of people.

Using the idea you propose in this post then there is nothing that could not be used to obtain information, including any type of torture ... regardless of whether other methods can obtain the same information without inflicting terror, pain and psychological damage. Also it opens the can of worms that was you may consider information making people safer may be considered useless information to others. Who is to be the judge, jury and executioner using your philosophy?

 

[poncho]

You know I have not heard one single explanation as to why waterboarding is immoral other than the word "torture" is attached to it. Seems to be a mind numbing following blindly based only on emotion and propaganda.

Maybe one of these folks who are against it can describe it and play by play show how each step is a problem.

I bet most folks do not know what it is.

April 27, 2009 |George W. Bush's Justice Department said subjecting a person to the near drowning of waterboarding was not a crime and didn't even cause pain, but Ronald Reagan's Justice Department thought otherwise, prosecuting a Texas sheriff and three deputies for using the practice to get confessions.

Federal prosecutors secured a 10-year sentence against the sheriff and four years in prison for the deputies. But that 1983 case -- which would seem to be directly on point for a legal analysis on waterboarding two decades later -- was never mentioned in the four Bush administration opinions released last week.

The failure to cite the earlier waterboarding case and a half-dozen other precedents that dealt with torture is reportedly one of the critical findings of a Justice Department watchdog report that legal sources say faults former Bush administration lawyers -- Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury -- for violating "professional standards."

http://www.alternet.org/story/138600/reagan%27s_doj_prosecuted_texas_sheriff_for_waterboarding_prisoners

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1964&dat=19831026&id=eQAtAAAAIBAJ&sjid=hM0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=3115,4032070


Waterboarding actually refers to two different interrogation techniques. One involves pumping water directly into the stomach. "This creates intense pain. It feels like your organs are on fire," says Darius Rejali, a professor at Reed College in Oregon and author of a new book, Torture and Democracy.

The other technique — the one more widely used today — involves choking the victim by filling their throat with a steady stream of water — a sort of "slow-motion drowning" that was perfected by Dutch traders in the 17th century. They used it against their British rivals in the East Indies.

A Victim's Description of Waterboarding http://www.npr.org/2007/11/03/15886834/waterboarding-a-tortured-history

Seems to be a mind numbing following blindly based only on emotion and propaganda.

Uh huh, like you aren't guilty of doing the same.

When we loosely attach a word like "torture" to something and then divorce it from its context it is easy to feign righteous indignation. However, what needs to be remembered here is waterboarding is not done in order to just obtain info. It is done in order to obtain info that will save people from an immediate and imminent threat. In other words to save lives. Failing to do it means people will die. If there is a moral failing it would be in refusing to do what we know will save the lives of people.

In other words it's all being done for "the greater good", how collectivist of you. Aren't you the same guy that claims out of the other side of your mouth to be in favor of individual rights and due process of law?

Flip, meet Flop.