Ever hear a Hillary screech?
Cruel and unusual punishment is not OK.
But torture isn’t punishment. It’s a tool. Nothing wrong with having a bunch of tools in the toolbox.
Barack Obama has been torturing tens of millions for 8 years.
How do they define “torture”?
Using harsh language or merely asking questions shouldn’t qualify.
Wrong. Its against the Geneva Convention and against American traditions.
Waterboarding is not torture. And terrorists are NOT “enemy combantants”, they are lunatics and criminals.
Torture is done by socialists and stuff
Give me a chair, some rope and a pair of pliers and I can show them how useful it can be.
Consequently, this violates "International Law" only in places where the writ runs, which is not in the United States, its territories or possessions.
As usual, liberals are pretending that treaties they'd "like" to be ratified have the force of US law. They don't.
The rules of war don’t apply to terrorists.
Do what you need to.
The pole may say Americans support torture, but of course the Times definition is not supported by the people. Here we have a popular voice which memorializes as torture legitimate steps this society took to protect itself from catastrophe. Their crime involves validating demands for an asymmetrical morality undefiled by any perception of danger. Placating those coveting such luxurious, dilemma-free morality ignores military and intelligence professionals facing shrewd, ruthless enemies obscured behind uncertain and unprecedented security threats. The Times believes a safe distance in time and space from the events of 9/11 and the war in Iraq now allows political capital and moral authority to be earned by berating people going into harm’s way our behalf.
However, these feral psychopaths never display the civility required for Geneva Convention definitions for militia, armed force, or volunteer corps, but are so dissociated from country or culture, so committed to butchery that they best match Webster’s definition for a virus. They are not insurgents or freedom fighters, and when captured, certainly not prisoners of war. These killers are not members of an organized resistance movement carrying arms openly, and they have no distinctive identifier. The Geneva Conventions describe terrorists as beyond the pale.
The Geneva Convention framers were parents and grandparents of the “Greatest Generation”, and held powerful positions throughout the darkest times of our world. Their words synthesize a brutal, durable morality properly earned from suffering through the ultimate bloody deluges of the 20th century. The people writing the Conventions intended to isolate terrorist forces, provide them minimal protections, and allow destruction with any overwhelming furies needed to crush their abominations.
Soon terrorists earning degrees in physical/biological sciences will abandon the trivial killing of hundreds to anticipate the incalculable deaths available from 21th century technologies. They will mine a world with ubiquitously available nuclear technology and material. They will exploit the diseases that decimated Europe and are now located one step away in the food chain. They will use technologies which can be found on the internet for creating cottage industries to produce lethal toxins and pathogens. They will appropriate the available delivery systems provided by the closed HVAC environments where 2,000 to 20,000 urban residents reside, travel, and work. The rapid spread of stealth and drone technologies will enable future extraordinarily effective delivery systems.
Terrorists remain unresponsive to direct questioning and psychological gambits. Therefore, effective interrogation necessitates applying all stress and coercion techniques our military encounters in survival schools. Effective interrogation requires combining these techniques within a continually confused and uncertain environment. For example CIA Director Leon Panetta told Brian Williams that “enhanced interrogation techniques”, including waterboarding, contributed the lead intelligence enabling Osama bin Laden’s discovery.
However, if the only information obtained is a confession or an assumed desired answer, then incorrect questions have been asked. The best humint intelligence acquired remains as unreliable as that from satellite surveillance, double agents, or cryptanalysis. Even independent verification leaves lingering uncertainties and critical hazards conquered only through resolute leadership. Yet not taking every step imagined to narrow the uncertainties is inviting unimaginable slaughter.
Representative DeFazio quoted to me 20 former Army interrogators who said, “Prisoner/detainee abuse and torture should be avoided at all costs”. I find the assertion disturbing, because on 9/11 we were prepared to shoot down any civilian airliner, which did not land immediately, regardless of crew assertions.
An incredible moral disconnect enabled killing our own citizens on 9/11, but now forbids subjecting terrorists to severe discomfort, such as the water boarding demonstrated on the capital mall, which might prevent extravagant murder and destruction. At what point in application of chemical, biological and atomic weapons to our society must we protect the American people “at all costs”?
Our politicians and particularly the Senate have criminally abandoned an historic duty to protect the American people. They have directed the definition for U.S. victory must reside wholly within interrogation processes that maintain their personal illusion of moral high ground. Islamic jihadists define victory as U.S. destruction through elaborate and extensive slaughters. Given jihadists avoid our desired scenarios for conflict; they win by their definition. However, according to senate mandates, we perish by the tens of thousands, but win by their definition.
Others in the world have a significantly different view on that subject.
I support waterboarding democrats!
As low as my trust in our government is now, I’d like as my restrictions on what they can do to someone they claim is their enemy.
What are they proposing, forcing Terrorists to listen to Hillary and Obama Speeches?
“Why am I not 50 points ahead you might ask”. LOL
It is well that war is so terrible or else we would come to love it. Torture is part and parcel of that nastiness. Sometimes, you do what ya gotta do....
Water boarding is NOT TORTURE.
It is something they used to do to our elite troops during training.
The only problem with torture is making is that you can be sure the Left is salivating to use against ‘terrorists’ in the NRA and the Tea Party other conservative, pro-gun or alt-right organization they don’t like.
The American public is not really expert on this stuff.
To them going without internet for twenty minutes is torture.
The very concept of torture is outdated, and reflective of a lack of creativity, and usually low morale.
The US first used something like waterboarding in the Philippine Insurrection (1899-1902). By World War II, both the US and Germans were familiar with sodium pentathol, aka “truth syrum”. By the 1960’s-’70’s, both Cold War powers were developing potent pharmaceutical drugs at a tremendous clip. This development continues today.
We have drugs that administered just once are as addictive as is heroin, alcohol and tobacco combined.
Another drug makes a person utterly terrified of almost any stimulus.
We have “endorphine blockers” that can negate the bodies natural painkillers, making any sensation agonizing, far worse than heroin withdrawal.
Psychoactive drugs almost beyond description.
So with such a pharmacology available, why “torture”?
Torture works. Just put a bomb vest on someone then point to a terrorist across the room and tell them they have 5 minutes before the bomb goes off...so get the stop code from that terrorist by any means possible. They’ll resort to violence within 10 seconds.