And now for some REAL torture ...
 

Boy, all you gotta do is take a look at this al-Qaeda "how-to" torture manual they found, and you realize that there's nothing the US has done ... in Iraq, Gitmo, or even the depravity at Abu Ghraib ... that qualifies as torture.

When Bush says "we don't condone torture," this is what he's talking about. Waterboarding is child's play.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,275341,00.html

That is a pretty dishonest position, don't you think? I think most people will agree that what al-Qaeda does is worse than what the US is reported to have done DIRECTLY. But how do you then reach the conclusion that only one of the groups can be engaging in torture?

The proper measure of our standards should never be al-Qaeda. I would hope everyone, including yourself, would expect a little more than that from our government.

This doesn't even raise the issue of extraordinary rendition that MW pointed out.

Torture is such a broad, ill-defined, emotion-evoking word, and the Left uses it so carelessly, I thought a little context would be in order.

Does Mike really believe the US uniformly uses torture or whether an organization consisting of millions of employees may have a few rogue employees?

Mike has consistly acted as if the US is a large organization uniformly engaging is gross torture of mass numbers of persons. He has never provided evidence thereof, except a memo written which makes a legal argument to support some questionable activities.

Why is this a hot button item?

The US won't really be in the business of torture, it won't cost you money and it's not reflective of how the US routinely operates.

Hmmm....lets see, I think I remember seeing a thread on here....

"Does evil exist?"

Context is fine, but that isn't what you are doing. You are stating that what al-Qaeda does is torture (no dispute here) and therefore what the US does is NOT torture (which conclusion, based on your statements alone, has no logical basis).

I think it takes big cognitive cahones to thumb through those detestable drawings and then come back to the US list of interrogation techniques and call any of them torture. It'd be like trying to argue that a flashlight and the sun have roughly the same level of brightness.

And again, I didn't say it was. I'm talking about definitions, not justifications.

I'll try this one more time. I'm saying outright: one is torture, the other is not. And I'm amazed at how a person could confuse one with the other, ever.

Then what do you call it Tex. I don't see why both would not be torture to varying degrees. You are correct, it is not as bad as what those terrorists do. So what. Yes, we are not as bad.

In regards to waterboarding. Nice to know that it is child's play. I think that comment alone lets me know just about well you understand things.

Hey, you're coming around, Cali - ;) Soon, you'll be voting for the good guys. :)

Torture is torture, not matter what it is. I really don't see varying degrees.

If Leave it to Beaver intended to accurately portray the relationship between brothers, torture would have certainly been involved. Sure, Wally didn't waterboard the Beav, but he certainly would have used titty twisters, noogies, wedgies, dead arms, indian burns, wet willy's, headlocks, tickle torture, and thumping on the chest with the middle knuckle protruding from the fist. Who knows what could have happened when Eddie Haskell got involved?

Because it's not torture.

I guess no one understands the term "idiomatic expression" either. Waterboarding and sleep deprivation are indeed "child's play" (read: trivial by comparison) compared to what's in that book.

Please provide evidence documenting the regular and sanctioned use of urination or electrical current attached to nipples by US troops or interrogators. Hint: you won't find any.

Sleep deprivation, and drilling a hole through the hand. Waterboarding, and dragging someone behind a car.

Yeah, you're right, those are roughly equivalent.

By the way ... lest we lose perspective: as best we know, waterboarding was practiced on only a select few. Only the hardest, most vicious, most senior terrorists were subjected to it. That's not an argument for its moral rightness or wrongness, but it dispenses with the myth that every "innocent" terrorist that walked in the door was subjected to it.

Mr. Tex,

I'm not certain the rest of us have time to go round in circles with you regarding what the rest of the educated, first world nations (and all major human rights agencies) regard as torture policies unacceptable for the supposed leader of the free world.

So I have a suggestion:

You fly down to Gitmo and check it out for us. And I don't mean just a long weekend. Stay for a good few weeks so you have time to explore the really nasty sections they don't like visitors to see. Make sure you see the police dogs in action and get a chance to chat with the psychiatrists hired to ensure the practices are as miserable and fear-inducing as possible. If you can swing it, watch as someone is force-administered an enema, then chained to the floor naked to lie in his own shit for days.

When you finish up there, head over to the black sites, where non-agents of the U.S. government employ techniques outlawed at Gitmo. There are several options, but you might consider Uzbekistan, where if you're really lucky you might just see someone boiled to death.

Of course these might just be exaggerations by the vast left-wing conspiracy, which is why we need you to check everything out first-hand. Make sure to update us on your findings and don't forget to send me a postcard!
Thx!!

~babs.



Sources Consulted:

* Lewis, Neil. Guantanamo tour focuses on medical ethics. New York Times November 13 2005.
* Lewis, Neil. Red Cross finds detainee abuse in Guantanamo. New York Times November 30 2005.
* Mayer, Jane. The experiment. New Yorker July 11 2005.
* Program on International Policy Attitudes. Global views on US. January 2007. (See question M2 part d.) Available online: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pi...n07_quaire.pdf
* Toobin, Jeffrey. Inside the wire. New Yorker February 9 2004.
* Van Natta, Jr, Don. U.S. recruits a rough ally to be a jailer. New York Times May 1 2005.

Mrs. Gordon,

Thank you for your polite response.

You are making a combination appeal to authority and appeal to popularity. The opinions of many (nameless) first world nations and (nameless) major human rights agencies are irrelevant. Even were I to accept this premise, I would argue there is no nation or agency in the world that carries enough moral high ground to dictate to America what she should or should not do in the interests of her own defense.

And please don't cite Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International. They are both clearly anti-American establishments. I believe the Red Cross--a respectable organization--has met with nearly all of the "high-profile" detainees and many of the lesser ones. I'm not aware of any significant criticism.

The rest of this is equally irrelevant. The assumption is that if I just watched the interrogation techniques I would change my mind and agree with you and the "rest of the world." I could be irrelevant in turn, and suggest you turn one of your family members over to al-Qaeda for "a good few weeks" and see if you feel such strong objections to the terrorists' treatment thereafter, but I won't. Troglodyte that I am, you'll simply have to be more convincing than condescending if you want to be persuasive.

One wonders if the truly tortuous acts of America take place in the "nasty sections they don't like visitors to see," how is it that you know so much about them?

I never claimed these techniques were pleasant. (Again, "child's play" is an idiom ... a metaphorical expression.) They are of course unpleasant, because these are unpleasant people hell bent on committing unpleasant acts. There are ways to extract the information we need from them without losing our humanity. Where to draw the line is where you and I disagree.

In the end, torture is a matter of opinion. As someone else observed, it's like obscenity: an "I know it when I see it" issue, and as such, we debate it. I have my opinion and you have yours, and we talk about it like the civilized folk that we are.

If you don't have time to "go round in circles" with me, may I gently suggest you opt not to respond--nay, even read--my posts any longer.

Regards,
Mr. Tex

agreed.

Tex-

Would you be comfortable with our troops undergoing waterboarding, sleep deprivation and the rest? If not, why? If so, why?
I am not asking whether you believe that those and worse would be used on our troops (as I am sure they would). Just whether you think that those interrogation techniques would be legitimate if used by our enemies against us.

According to the New York Times of 11/30/2004, page 1A, the ICRC has in fact determined that the abuses at Guantanamo qualify as torture.

this is one of the funniest posts of all time
 

LOL

Anybody ever see the Mythbusters episode on the Chinese water torture? They strapped the girl (Kari, I believe) into the chair and did the experiment on her. She was told that at any time, she could ask to be let go and they would immediately comply. They kept the water temperature reasonable, and basically did everything they could to make it as pleasant and comfortable an experience as possible, with the exception of the water drops. She freaked out. They tried it on one of the guys in a lazy boy with no restraints whatsoever, and he only lasted a few minutes. Painful? Absolutely not. Torture? Absolutely.

There is no moral equivalence between us and them. None.

The question of rendition revolves around separate ethical questions. We can chat about it if you like, but I view it as a different issue from US interrogators committing torture.

Re: Alligator clips and urination. It's evidence of a weak argument when you must extrapolate the inappropriate (and properly punished) misbehavior of a few miscreants' on to the US as a whole. Even so, they STILL don't amount to torture.

That's some fascinating mental gymnastics you're doing to try and persuade me that having holes drilled through your hand is a less tortuous option than not being permitted to sleep. Are you really so determined to shoehorn sleep deprivation into the book of torture that you cannot see the expansive difference between the two?

What about you, Padrino? Do you, as Cali, see no "degree" in these two practices?

I don't recall saying "they had it coming." I simply said that its use was very limited, and I explicitly noted that it's not relevant to the morality question.

I'm not struggling at all. Moral standards don't require a world referendum. If the rest of the world chooses to redefine marriage and grant full marital rights to homosexuals, that doesn't mean I have to go along with it here. We can debate whether or not waterboarding or sleep deprivation falls under the Merriam-Webster definition of torture, but that's not really the relevant question.

You have to understand torture has become a political term. It's converted beyond a basic meaning of "causing pain" into a concept to brow-beat the US with by those who resent our superior moral authority. Thus for the purposes of this discussion, I think of torture as that class of techniques that deny our humanity, or make us "equal to or worse than the terrorists." These interrogation techniques do not fall under that category.

I stand corrected.

You continue to identify false causal relationships in my assertions. No, it's not appropriate because we are doing it to them ... if we started searing their skin with a hot iron, you wouldn't find me supporting it.

Nonetheless, I do assert (see above) that there is zero moral equivalence between us and them. We stand on a mountain of higher ground, thus comparisons are almost always distorted. The attempt to do so is one of the Left's most lasting examples of self-loathing I have ever seen.

That's fascinating. Do you feel this way only about the tortue issue or do you apply this in a more universal sense?

Is it fascinating or terrifying? It seems to me this is the kind of thinking (assumption of moral superiority) that brought us the Crusades and the Holocaust.

Godwin's Law. You lose.

Seriously, it's amazing how often discussions on the internet turn into, "You're like Hitler!"

I anticipated someone accusing me of equating Bush to Hitler. Congrats.

You deny, then, the inherent danger of an a priori assumption of moral superiority?

about waterboarding
 

John McCain said that in all his horrible time as POW, the worst form of torture he was subjected to were mock executions. He would have rather received beatings than go through the mental anguish associated with thinking he was going to die.

Deleted because it was an unnecessary attack on Lingo.

He doesn't. He likes to distract from the substance of a post when he can't construct a counter-argument.

It's not?!?!

Not nothing more than a mild inconvenience ... mild in comparison to what real torture looks like.

Be sure to send a note to the terrorists' victims who had holes drilled in their hands: "Golly, you sure are lucky you didn't get sleep deprival. That's something you'll NEVER recover from. The hole in your hand will heal." Let me know how they respond, will ya?

On this we simply disagree.

That is your idea of what the morally superior position would be.

You're changing the subject again. I've made no defense (nor addressed at all) the issue of rendition. I said I feel it's separate, and I'll be happy to discuss it in a separate thread. This thread is about the treatment of detainees by American authorities.

Translation: "Even though Wikipedia is not an authority on issues, I'm going to cite it to you as if it were, and will expect you to respond to it as such, and then will mock you for doing so."

As long as you continue to distract from the real issue, I don't see any reason why I should respond to you with seriousness.

My answer below, in response to Barbara.

My, my, what a terrible thing to say. I'll take the high road and assume such a unkind comment was borne out of mere misunderstanding of my meaning, rather than out of real malice.

America is the greatest nation on earth. She has done more for the freedom and peace and liberty of mankind than any other nation or organization that ever existed in it. In the mere space of two and a half centuries, she has gone from a fledgling nation barely able to manage her own affairs, to a massive superpower whose flag and name spawn hope in the oppressed and fear in the oppressors.

America has no oppression in her purpose. She seeks the liberty of man wherever her influence extends, and her actions are calibrated to acheive that end. War is her companion only when all other refuge fails, and the soil where American men die defending her precepts is sacred and hallowed. With one hand she restores God's inalienable rights to those from whom they were taken, and with the other she looses "the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword" on those who would take them away.

America was instituted by divine intercession to fulfill this role, and though she has flaws, she labors to exorcise them. She seeks unity but welcomes dissent. She encourages the highest aspirations of the human spirit. Her citizens do not believe they are inherently superior to anyone. They instead espouse her most lofty doctrines: that all men are created equal; and that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the privilege and destiny of all free men, and she desires that all men should be so.

America is indeed Reagan's "shining city on a hill ... still [standing] strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what the storm." Though detractors may point to her flaws in desperate acts of jealously and resentment, yet her "beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome" still.

Yes, she is the moral superior to every nation. And thank God that this is so.