Let's say you waterboarded him and got put on a false trail. Would you feel bad that you didn't use a more effective technique?
Waterboarding
- Thread starter Patricman
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Berzerker
Deity
Of course, but what more effective technique do I have that wont put me on a false trail? I'll gladly use it... The clock is ticking
I do not claim this is not terrible to experience. That's why it is still torture. It would be of no use otherwise.
The difference is that when your fingers are smashed with sledgehammer, this is in no way "simulated" damage. You'll effectively, irreversibly, end up as a cripple. When you are waterboarded, you'll suffer no lasting consequences, afaik.
Berzerker
Deity
Not me
If its legit and necessary, why should they go to jail?
Thank God for the jury system - those cases are ripe for jury nullification. Why even have the law in the first place if the law is immoral?
A would be murderer, or AQ planner, "deserves" it because their would be victims deserve to live. They talk and they dont get water boarded, its in their hands. And why is it immoral to grant permission to water board? If I'm in the way of the bomb about to go off, you have my permission to water board the terrorist
The clock is ticking. Obviously I don't suspect that they are planning in hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings or I would already have the airports on high alert. Note that we have used waterboarding to confirm information or gather confessions - another words, torturing someone towards a particular answer. If you don't already have the correct answers suspected, waterboarding is not going to be effective.Of course, but what more effective technique do I have that wont put me on a false trail? I'll gladly use it... The clock is ticking
Waterboarding gives me maybe one decent shot to ask questions under that particular technique because any repeats are likely to increase the chance of false info since the person I am interrogating becomes convinced that any answers aren't going to prevent a repeat and thus there is very little incentive to do anything but give answer that ends the waterboarding for the moment.
Since I don't even know to ask about hijacking planes crashing into buildings, how would I ever hope to ask effective questions in the one chance I have under the technique? More traditonal techniques that would allow me to gather information over the whole time period the clock is ticking would have a better chance of narrowing down what I need to be doing to prevent the attack.
Berzerker
Deity
"If I had the choice of being waterboarded by a third party or having my fingers smashed one at a time by a sledgehammer, I'd take the fingers, no question. It's horrible, terrible, inhuman torture. I can hardly imagine worse. I'd prefer permanent damage and disability to experiencing it again. I'd give up anything, say anything, do anything." -Scylla
Funny, he was waterboarded but he didn't have his fingers smashed with a sledgehammer 
C'mon, how can anyone take that seriously?
Funny, he was waterboarded but he didn't have his fingers smashed with a sledgehammer
C'mon, how can anyone take that seriously?
Berzerker
Deity
The FAA et al is asleep, you aren't. You already know that is one of their ideas for attacking.
Hey sheik, got any attacks planned? Thats the only question we're asking him as we prepare to water board. Why do you think this is 20 questions where we have to ask the "right" question?
Do his victims deserve one decent shot? We're checking his info out as he gives it, we can tell within a very short time if a 9/11 style event was in the planning. But he knows he aint goin nowhere, if he lies we're right back to the board. Thats why the guy was singing when we did it to him...
Dont be involved, let people who do know what to ask do the job. Geez, you make it sound like its complicated. Hey sheik, you planning on hijacking any planes? How about, do you have any plans to attack the US?
Which is what? I asked you for this better technique and all you did was tell me why you shouldn't interrogate
him.
You have come a long way from your 9/8 scenario. We did not know enough on 9/8 to have made waterboarding a viably effective technique. Otherwise, the terrorists would never have boarded the planes.
RavenKing
Warlord
@Berzerker
Ok, granted, complete security is impossible, especially for a superpower. But until 9/11 America had enjoyed a considerable degree of freedom from terrorist activities and the horrors of war on its soil in comparison with most parts of the world.
No the 9/11 terrorists didn't attack because of waterboarding. But setting up a government sanctioned torture camp hands people who are already suspicious of the US another reason to hate and plot against it. And this reason can be made to resonate among millions of people. I'm not familiar with the scope of the American military presence in Saudi Arabia, but the invasion of Iraq has certainly been problematic, particularly for the Iraqis themselves who have suffered horrendous civilian casualties as a result of the mayhem unleashed in the aftermath of the war. How many millions of Iraqis will grow up loathing the US? What are the long term repercussions going to be? Coming from an Irish background, I know that hatreds inflamed can take one or more generations to quell.
Obviously if you are confronted with a terrorist about to kill your child you have a right to react, including the right to apply lethal force. The threat is imminent, the identity of the attacker is clear and the defence response is justifiable and has been sanctioned by law.
The difficulty inherent with torture is that until you torture someone you don't know if you in fact have a person that has information to provide. If you scoop up people that are believed to be 'terrorists' you are bound to make mistakes. You are bound to torture people who may be 'undesirable' but who have no actual information to provide; and you are bound to torture innocent people. The case of Maher Arar is an example of a Canadian rendered by the US to Syria in September 2002 in reaction to faulty information (supplied by Canadian sources) where he was subjected to torture. There is no sufficient evidence that he is or was a terrorist. He has been cleared by the inquiry held to examine his case and Canadian taxpayers have paid compensation for the role of the RCMP in his extradition to Syria.
So, by accepting torture, you must accept that some people who are in fact innocent will be tortured in order to increase the odds that a 'plot' will be discovered in time to save lives. How many innocent people can be tortured to justify saving 1 life? How many innocent people can be tortured to justify saving 1000 lives?
They may not care, but Americans should. Freedom and respect for human rights and the rule of law, (with all of the shortcomings and compromises that these create), are the birthrights of the American people and shouldn't be traded away.
Ok, granted, complete security is impossible, especially for a superpower. But until 9/11 America had enjoyed a considerable degree of freedom from terrorist activities and the horrors of war on its soil in comparison with most parts of the world.
No the 9/11 terrorists didn't attack because of waterboarding. But setting up a government sanctioned torture camp hands people who are already suspicious of the US another reason to hate and plot against it. And this reason can be made to resonate among millions of people. I'm not familiar with the scope of the American military presence in Saudi Arabia, but the invasion of Iraq has certainly been problematic, particularly for the Iraqis themselves who have suffered horrendous civilian casualties as a result of the mayhem unleashed in the aftermath of the war. How many millions of Iraqis will grow up loathing the US? What are the long term repercussions going to be? Coming from an Irish background, I know that hatreds inflamed can take one or more generations to quell.
Obviously if you are confronted with a terrorist about to kill your child you have a right to react, including the right to apply lethal force. The threat is imminent, the identity of the attacker is clear and the defence response is justifiable and has been sanctioned by law.
The difficulty inherent with torture is that until you torture someone you don't know if you in fact have a person that has information to provide. If you scoop up people that are believed to be 'terrorists' you are bound to make mistakes. You are bound to torture people who may be 'undesirable' but who have no actual information to provide; and you are bound to torture innocent people. The case of Maher Arar is an example of a Canadian rendered by the US to Syria in September 2002 in reaction to faulty information (supplied by Canadian sources) where he was subjected to torture. There is no sufficient evidence that he is or was a terrorist. He has been cleared by the inquiry held to examine his case and Canadian taxpayers have paid compensation for the role of the RCMP in his extradition to Syria.
So, by accepting torture, you must accept that some people who are in fact innocent will be tortured in order to increase the odds that a 'plot' will be discovered in time to save lives. How many innocent people can be tortured to justify saving 1 life? How many innocent people can be tortured to justify saving 1000 lives?
They may not care, but Americans should. Freedom and respect for human rights and the rule of law, (with all of the shortcomings and compromises that these create), are the birthrights of the American people and shouldn't be traded away.
The consequences of any sufficiently effective torture method regardless of the physical damage is doubtless psychological damage.
Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
Your knowledge doesn't stretch far enough, and you appear to have ignored several of the points I made. If I remove your entire hand, I can still cause you phantom limb pain as though the fingers were being smashed, and I can smash the fingers without you feeling anything. As the perception in the brain, not the event on the finger, is what causes pain, it is the simulation of damage which makes up the torture, and the smashed fingers are only a convenient tool. Waterboarding does have lasting consequences, and is generally preferred (by torturers) to sledgehammers for the specific reason of not leaving gross physical signs, both because it is harder to prove afterwards, and because it doesn't lock out as many other options. ("You can't use stress positions if the participant's hands and feet have been amputated. You can't show your prisoner his wife being raped if you've burned his eyes out.") Finally, to torture does not mean to cripple.I do not claim this is not terrible to experience. That's why it is still torture. It would be of no use otherwise.
The difference is that when your fingers are smashed with sledgehammer, this is in no way "simulated" damage. You'll effectively, irreversibly, end up as a cripple. When you are waterboarded, you'll suffer no lasting consequences, afaik.
And why is it immoral to grant permission to water board? If I'm in the way of the bomb about to go off, you have my permission to water board the terrorist
Because the permission needs to be given pre-emptively by a democracy, and there's no way that a democracy can be 100% convinced and certain that the person you're about to water-board deserves it. Remember, it's only appropriate if it's 100% appropriate: that's a level of morality that the law just cannot touch.
As well, if you're given permission to torture, then you're going to use the standard of proof given to you by the law. This standard will (necessarily) be more vague that the standard a reasonable person would use. This means that if you end up torturing an innocent person, the law would let you off. That's nonsense. The law should never rescue a torturer who 'made a mistake'.
Remember law =/= morality. Sometimes there are events where you would never be able to give the jury the same level of evidence that you have.
Probably
Yes, yes, I completely understand that. But that was not the point I was trying to make. The point was, that while waterboarding might (not sure about that, but unless I try both, I won't be able to confirm or deny) be more painful and emotionally difficult than smashing of fingers while it is performed, the waterboarded guy won't be permanently disabled. For the rest of his life, he will be better off than the another guy, who might never hold a spoon again...
Which ones? Apart from fear of it being repeated?
Makes perfect sense, obviously.
Sure, but which one is worse? Not to mention that our comparison is actually between:
a) Torture
b) Torture AND cripple.
EDIT: Also, I read the description of waterboarding experience given by Scylla you provided and one thing stroke me as odd. The guy claims that
I can't imagine why would that experience be different or less terrible than the drowning sensation he felt when he waterboarded himself?
Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
Quick post before I go to bed:
Ah, in that case I see your point, and I think we've been talking past one another if you were comparing those, while I was arguing which forms of torture were worse as torture.
If he swam until he passed out (and I assume there was another lifeguard there to grab him out at that point), he wouldn't have been drowning at any point that he was conscious.EDIT: Also, I read the description of waterboarding experience given by Scylla you provided and one thing stroke me as odd. The guy claims that I can't imagine why would that experience be different or less terrible than the drowning sensation he felt when he waterboarded himself?
I have not read this thread nor am I going to. I just watched this video and it's fascinating. I highly recommend it. It's relevant to this thread.
http://crooksandliars.com/2008/07/02/hitchens-gets-waterboarded-believe-me-its-torture/
By the way, if anybody refuses to watch it because it's on Crooks and Liars, then please stick your head in a bucket of motor oil and don't remove it.
The most amazing part of the video is the end, where Hitchens talks about his nightmares. He says he never used to have nightmares, and now he does, and the nightmares are of his waterboarding experience.
http://crooksandliars.com/2008/07/02/hitchens-gets-waterboarded-believe-me-its-torture/
By the way, if anybody refuses to watch it because it's on Crooks and Liars, then please stick your head in a bucket of motor oil and don't remove it.
The most amazing part of the video is the end, where Hitchens talks about his nightmares. He says he never used to have nightmares, and now he does, and the nightmares are of his waterboarding experience.
I have an honest question: why is waterboarding the big topic that it is? All the other enhanced interrogation techniques that are now part of U.S. policy -- isolation, long time standing, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures -- were used extensively by the KGB (among others) to torture political prisoners. Heck, U.S. torture policy was developed from a program designed to train American soldiers to withstand the aforementioned torture methods. I wonder to what extent the attention devoted to the issue of waterboarding deflects attention from the other objectionable aspects of U.S. policy.
I mean, if the point of discussion is "is waterboarding torture?," what happens when it's resolved in the affirmative? After such a long discussion, might it not be more difficult to then object to long time standing (which is obviously torture as well -- the KGB used it to elicit false confessions) or sleep deprivation? If the line between "torture" and "not torture" is established at just past waterboarding, what does it mean for other torture methods that aren't as acutely horrifying?
Cleo
I mean, if the point of discussion is "is waterboarding torture?," what happens when it's resolved in the affirmative? After such a long discussion, might it not be more difficult to then object to long time standing (which is obviously torture as well -- the KGB used it to elicit false confessions) or sleep deprivation? If the line between "torture" and "not torture" is established at just past waterboarding, what does it mean for other torture methods that aren't as acutely horrifying?
Cleo
Bronx Warlord
Squad Leader
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2004
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- 2,449
I've been put on the board. I've felt it's effects. I have no problems with it being used because I can tell you from first hand experance that it works. If you end up in that situation, your professionals handleing you know that you already know something or prehaps even a lot of information. It's not like they picked you up off the street and did it for kicks.
So you've felt the effects. Would you be willing to give a false confession to stop them?
Mandeville
Prince
Joe Pesci beats a guys ass for two days and sticks ice picks in his balls, and he never talks! In the end he had to put his head in a vice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_-FhoPJmBg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_-FhoPJmBg
Suppose you didn't know anything and were innocent. Would you be able to keep asserting that you know nothing, or would it be horrible enough to get you to admit a false guilt?
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