Ok so I've been reading a lot of posts about waterboarding. That's is not torture, it doesn't leave permanent damage, etc. People are trying to persuade others that the US don't torture people, they just waterboard them. Others say torture is immoral and we should never do it.
First of all, waterboard is torture, it fit every existing definitions of torture. I won't argue with it because it's like arguing that the Earth is a planet. I won't waiste time with people who don't beleive so or deal with semantics.
It's also irrelevant because people who are willing to use waterboarding are certainly willing to use others form of tortures to get say information. I mean, the Japanese in WW2 were obviously not against hardcore torture but yet, they use waterbording, why? Because it's just one mean to get informations out of prisoners among others.
Let's take a simple example: a governement is detaining someone who they beleive know about a terrorist plot that is about to unfold in the coming days. They have resonnable evidences that this person is involved in that plot and know how to find the others responsibles. The detention of this guy is not public knowledge and, if they kill him, nobody will know about it.
You know what? This guy would get tortured be it by the USA, by Canada, France, UK. Traditionnal neutral country like Switzerland would torture him too. And if I was in charge, I would torture him. Not because I think it's right, not because the informations I will get will be reliable but simply because if I have strong proofs that many people will die soon and my only way to stop this is with this guy, I would do everything to get what little informations I need.
Not everyone would do that, of course. Ghandi, Jesus and the Dalai-Lama would not I guess. But 98% of the rest of the world would.
My point is, who cares if the US is waterboarding people? Do they? It seem so. Do they do worse when the need arise? You bet! Informations coming from torture may not be the most reliable but if it fit with others sources, then it has it's uses. It's never right to do it just like it's never right to go to war but sometimes not doing it may be even more wrong.
Now, does that's mean any situations involving waterboarding must be ignored? Of course not! But we must protest agains the entire thing not just some parts of it. Is it ok for the US to waterboard a guy in Guantanamo without having any evidence that he may know something about Bin Laden? No! But it's not ok to have him prisoner without trial in the first place! Protesting against the waterboarding part is like protesting that a rapist didn't use a condoms to rape his victim. The whole thing is wrong, no need to argue about the details of it.
First of all, waterboard is torture, it fit every existing definitions of torture. I won't argue with it because it's like arguing that the Earth is a planet. I won't waiste time with people who don't beleive so or deal with semantics.
It's also irrelevant because people who are willing to use waterboarding are certainly willing to use others form of tortures to get say information. I mean, the Japanese in WW2 were obviously not against hardcore torture but yet, they use waterbording, why? Because it's just one mean to get informations out of prisoners among others.
Let's take a simple example: a governement is detaining someone who they beleive know about a terrorist plot that is about to unfold in the coming days. They have resonnable evidences that this person is involved in that plot and know how to find the others responsibles. The detention of this guy is not public knowledge and, if they kill him, nobody will know about it.
You know what? This guy would get tortured be it by the USA, by Canada, France, UK. Traditionnal neutral country like Switzerland would torture him too. And if I was in charge, I would torture him. Not because I think it's right, not because the informations I will get will be reliable but simply because if I have strong proofs that many people will die soon and my only way to stop this is with this guy, I would do everything to get what little informations I need.
Not everyone would do that, of course. Ghandi, Jesus and the Dalai-Lama would not I guess. But 98% of the rest of the world would.
My point is, who cares if the US is waterboarding people? Do they? It seem so. Do they do worse when the need arise? You bet! Informations coming from torture may not be the most reliable but if it fit with others sources, then it has it's uses. It's never right to do it just like it's never right to go to war but sometimes not doing it may be even more wrong.
Now, does that's mean any situations involving waterboarding must be ignored? Of course not! But we must protest agains the entire thing not just some parts of it. Is it ok for the US to waterboard a guy in Guantanamo without having any evidence that he may know something about Bin Laden? No! But it's not ok to have him prisoner without trial in the first place! Protesting against the waterboarding part is like protesting that a rapist didn't use a condoms to rape his victim. The whole thing is wrong, no need to argue about the details of it.
