Secret endorsement of torture

[Xavier_Onassis]

Tying them down and pouring warm water over their heads? Nope, doesn't sound like torture to me. Annoying, yes, torture, no.
==============================================
Personally, I think that you need to do a bit of research on this before you come to such a snap judgment.

It seems to me that there is a very high probability that at some point, the waterboarded individual's body takes over, and the mind that tells you that this is merelky annoying is no longer in control. Instead, the  person has an instinctive drowning reflex, and feels that he will die, and panics.

You can tell yourself as you stick your finger down your throat that there is no reason for you to upchuck and that the finger down your throat is merely an annoyance, but at some point, you get a gag reflex, and BLAAAAAAAGHHH! Up come the cookies, the cobbler, the spaghetti and the Merlot '87.

Waterboarding might well be unendurable torture or it might not, but the only way to decide this is to have yourself waterboarded. Or so it seems to me.

This will be true despite anyone signing any document.

[Amianthus]

Waterboarding might well be unendurable torture or it might not, but the only way to decide this is to have yourself waterboarded. Or so it seems to me.

You mean like the military is trained to do?

[Lanya]

http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2006/09/20/waterboarding-cia-approved-enhanced-interrogation-techniques/

[Michael Tee]

<<Tying them down and pouring warm water over their heads? Nope, doesn't sound like torture to me. Annoying, yes, torture, no.>>

Let's not forget that waterboarding is not just pouring warm water over heads, there is also the minor detail that the victim cannot breathe while the process is continuing.   Keeping that in mind, Ami, do you think it would be OK if Iranians waterboarded captured Americans for information during any future wars in Iran?  Whether or not you consider it torture, is it an OK technique for American prisoners (i.e., Americans held prisoners by others)  to be subjected to?

[Brassmask]

When American kids come home telling stories of being waterboarded, don't anybody here utter a word.

After all, its just harmless frat hazing.

[sirs]

When American kids come home telling stories of being waterboarded, don't anybody here utter a word.  After all, its just harmless frat hazing.

Yea, that's precisely what's being stated here       

[Brassmask]

Let's hang out some weekend and let me waterboard for a few hours, ok?

[sirs]

Ahh, so "torture" is a hobby of yours?  Do tell

[Brassmask]

Ahh, so "torture" is a hobby of yours?  Do tell

Wait I thought it was just good old boy adolescent fun.  Which is it?  I mean, if it's not torture and just the same as hazing/being "uncomfortable", what's the big deal? 

The waterboarding technique, characterized in 2005 by former CIA director Porter J. Goss as a "professional interrogation technique,"[13] is described as follows by journalist Julia Layton:

    Water boarding as it is currently described involves strapping a person to an inclined board, with his feet raised and his head lowered. The interrogators bind the person's arms and legs so he can't move at all, and they cover his face. In some descriptions, the person is gagged, and some sort of cloth covers his nose and mouth; in others, his face is wrapped in cellophane. The interrogator then repeatedly pours water onto the person's face. Depending on the exact setup, the water may or may not actually get into the person's mouth and nose; but the physical experience of being underneath a wave of water seems to be secondary to the psychological experience. The person's mind believes he is drowning, and his gag reflex kicks in as if he were choking on all that water falling on his face.[14]

CIA officers who subject themselves to the technique last an average of 14 seconds before caving in.[15]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding

It'll be fun!!  Good times!

[sirs]

Ahh, so "torture" is a hobby of yours?  Do tell

Wait I thought it was just good old boy adolescent fun.  

And who the hell said that?  That would be the person you might want to talk to in inviting them over to your house for some personal uncomfortablilty

[Michael Tee]

<<Yea, that's precisely what's being stated here [that waterboarding is just harmless frat hazing.]>>

And the divorce between sirs' brain and reality becomes final and absolute. 

I don't think it's all that significant that sirs would compare waterboarding to harmless frat hazing.  What I find significant is that in sirs, we have a human being who is willing to subject other human beings to the agony of waterboarding.  In me, you have a human being that is not willing to subject another human being to the agony waterboarding.  Whether sirs calls it hazing or I call it agony is not the point.  The point is what is he willing to do to another human being and what am I willing to do to one.

I look at the world as divided, good guys and bad guys.  Good guys are like me.  Bad guys are like sirs.  sirs can't convince me waterboarding is OK and I can't convince him that it is not.  This is a true values question, and logic is not adequate to the task of convincing one into or out of core values. 

sirs and his ilk must be prevented, by force if necessary, from having their way in the world.  It's as simple as that.  They are the enemy.   

But the fact is, they and their evil twins in the Arab world are winning the war of good against evil.  Torture is and will remain fully entrenched for the foreseeable future.  It really doesn't matter who wins in Iraq, the real winner will  be torture.  In the long run only the total defeat of the U.S.A. by some power as yet unseen will put an end to the power of people who practise sirs' values.

[sirs]

<<Yea, that's precisely what's being stated here [that waterboarding is just harmless frat hazing.]>>

I don't think it's all that significant that sirs would compare waterboarding to harmless frat hazing.  What I find significant is that in sirs, we have a human being who is willing to subject other human beings to the agony of waterboarding.

IF it can prevent the potential for thousands of lives to be saved, absofrellinloutely.  You'll of course get back to me when you can demonstrated how I support the infliction of bodily damage, or dismemberment, of pulling tongues out, or of burning the flesh of a living human....you know the stuff that folks like AlQeada performs, that you keep trying to compare us to.  The best you can complain about is loud music, slaps on the head, and waterboarding, as if that's what our enemy does       

sirs and his ilk must be prevented, by force if necessary, from having their way in the world.  It's as simple as that.  They are the enemy... In the long run only the total defeat of the U.S.A. by some power as yet unseen will put an end to the power of people who practise sirs' values.   

And there, for all to see.  It's Americans like me, and like minded citizens fighting for freedom and democracy that are the true enemies of the globe.  Only those who managed to call real evil evil, are apparently the evil ones.  And of course... ends justify the means.  I doubt Brass and Tee would subject me to waterboarding.  My guess is they'll jump right into pulling the tongue out 1st, while forcing me to listen Air America, in one of their re-education camps.  Good thing I have my Sig & 30-30.  That'll make it a tad harder

[Brassmask]

What's so funny, sirs, is I wouldn't bother looking your direction, let alone waste one second on torturing you.

[sirs]

But according to Tee, I'm the real enemy, I'm the evil that permeates this country, worse than Usama, worse than probably Hitler, but of course nothing tops Bush.  If I'm the real enemy, why would you ignore me?  I need to be re-educated, in one of your camps for serious offenders

So, going to let us in on who's claiming waterboarding is just some frat prank??  Adolescent fun??

[Amianthus]

Keeping that in mind, Ami, do you think it would be OK if Iranians waterboarded captured Americans for information during any future wars in Iran?  Whether or not you consider it torture, is it an OK technique for American prisoners (i.e., Americans held prisoners by others)  to be subjected to?

Since the US military already does it to many US soldiers during training to resist interrogation techniques, I don't see anything wrong with our enemies using a technique our soldiers are trained to resist.