On torture, or the claims about torture

[Kahuna]

Same response to Gern and Merlyn: It has nothing to do with police or ethics. It has to do with different laws that apply to people in different situations. Inside the U.S., you have specific laws that govern people's rights. You can't even ask them questions if they request a lawyer. Outside the U.S. you have the Geneva Convention which has to do with military combatants of nations that have signed the Convention. Taliban and Al Queda and a host of others don't fall within any of those protections. I don't think the U.S. should engage in pulling out fingernails or attaching electrical cords to people, but I do think waterboarding is harmless, unpleasant and has produced some valuable information.

 

I'm sure that answer won't satisfy either of you, but that's all I really have to say about that.

[GernBlansten]

So if the terrorists don't fall under our laws or the Geneva convention, what restricts our behavior? Our own morality and ethics? There are no rules. What makes waterboarding ok in that case, but not pulling their fingernails off? Or to the extreme, drawing and quartering them.

The argument I'm hearing is that these combatants are not entitled to any codified treatment standards.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Kahuna, you claim waterboarding isn't torture. The police can interrogate suspects, and if waterboarding isn't torture, what precludes the police from using it?

[John-in-KC]

Please allow me to make this real simple:

 

My father shares a status with Senator John McCain: They were both prisoners of war. Dad was held by the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II, Senator McCain by the North Vietnamese.

 

Dad has introduced me to other former US prisoners of war. The ones I know, while certainly not being a huge sample, nor necessarily a statistical sample, say this simply: The United States of America needs to be the Gold Standard of holding prisoners captured in wartime. Period.

 

Let our enemies be the ones who use and abuse prisoners.

 

My thoughts.

[SSScout]

JohninKC:

 

Exactly so.

[Beavah]

Yah, with due respect to Kahuna... horse hockey!

 

If they aren't enemy combatants covered by da Geneva Conventions, they are civilians engaged in a criminal enterprise. Either way, torture durin' interrogation (includin' waterboarding) is a crime. Like I said, every single time this has been tried anywhere in da world it has resulted in conviction. It is utterly repugnant.

 

The notion that long term physical harm is da standard for definin' torture is hogwash speculated on by that "hack" Gonzales. These days we have the science to stick electrodes into da pain centers of the brain, eh? No long-term physical harm. Leaves hardly a mark. Still torture.

 

More importantly, we Americans have never claimed that human rights are simply an issue of law. Our stance has always been that of our Declaration of Independence, that human rights are God-given and inalienable - and that governments which transgress those rights must be altered or abolished.

 

That is da reason these guys need to be prosecuted, bottom to top. The ridiculous and wicked notion that waterboardin' is an OK thing has penetrated too far into the culture for our well being. As a patriot and a Christian it sickens me. But da way to fix it when moral suasion is ineffective is by fear of prosecution and imprisonment.

 

Beavah

 

[vol_scouter]

Well said Beavah. Most of Obama's policies and vision I find disturbing but, on this topic, he is correct to adopt the Army field manual as the standard. My only gray area is in the middle of combat where I would tend to be a little more generous allowing some harsh treatment but not to the point of torturing the enemy.

[SSScout]

Old "Hawaii Five - O" episode.

 

Arch enemy Wo Fat captures head cop McGarett, drugs him. When Mcgarett wakes up, he is in a sensory deprivation apparatus, black goggled so he can't see, ear muffed, stretched out and tied out in a wet suit in an 80 degree water tank. Wo Fat's goal (as I remember) was first revenge and second to gain info about undercover police operations. No physical harm, but when rescued by his loyal comrades, McGarett was not his old "book'em Dan-o" self for several episodes.

 

Torture by Gonzolez standards? Or no?

 

[Kahuna]

>>Yah, with due respect to Kahuna... horse hockey

[TheScout]

Beavah, perhaps you are making the "all men" a bit more universal then the Declaration of Independence does. It seemed to relate more to the American political community - white men (and in some places on Protestant ones). Women, slaves, Indians were pretty much not included.

 

And though such rights are inalienable the community does have the right to punish wrongdoers. Those convicted of crimes are deprived of their life or liberty sometimes.

[John-in-KC]

TheScout:

 

When the United States has resorted to agencies other than US District Courts or War/Navy/Defense Department impaneled courts-martial, we have generally had a declared state of war we were fighting under.

 

Not so these past seven years. While the Iraqi authorization was tantamount to a declaration of war, we have since concluded treaties with the Successor State. That's off the table. What we've done with other enemies is outside the realm of a properly declared war.

 

I'll let Beavah discuss the law (he's rather better equipped to do so than I), but from my small and somewhat limited study of the military arts and sciences, our jus ad bellum/jus im bello is just a tad to the shaky side.

[TheScout]

I don't really know where that came from.

 

I don't really disagree.

 

I think Congress should declare war more. I don't know how much exactly. For example Jefferson never declared war on the Barbary Pirates. It seems nowadays Congress likes to pawn the decision off on the President like with Iraq.

 

I think Congress should exercise its powers to design federal courts to create some which can successfully try terrorists or whatever you wish to call them in a court-martial like fashion. It seems they should be treated like pirates in the days of yore. I would not consider them entitled to Bill of Rights protections unless of course they were American citizens. Just like the German spies dropped here during World War II were not.

[structuralrik]

I think waterboarding is torture, but I will defer to someone who has more experience in the area:

 

"Reacting to the news that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, McCain responds thusly:

 

It's unacceptable. It's unacceptable. One is too much. Waterboarding is torture, period. I can ensure you that once enough physical pain is inflicted on someone, they will tell that interrogator whatever they think they want to hear. And most importantly, it serves as a great propaganda tool for those who recruit people to fight against us. And I've seen concrete examples of that talking to former high-ranking al-Qaeda individuals in Iraq."

 

Not ok in any situation.