One of your own thought waterboarding was nothing. So he decided to under go the procedure to prove it. It was on the MSP but perhaps not on Fox Noise.

He lasted 6 seconds... came up and declared he was wrong IT IS TORTURE. This guy had a drowning experience as a kid.

In reponse Keith Obermann donated $10,000 to Vet Charity. Sean Hannity would said he would be waterboarded for charity has not yet done so.

The United States does not Torture....it is a basic value of this country.

Bush and Cheney broke that trust. Them's the facts.

Originally Posted by cologal

One of your own thought waterboarding was nothing. So he decided to under go the procedure to prove it. It was on the MSP but perhaps not on Fox Noise.

He lasted 6 seconds... came up and declared he was wrong IT IS TORTURE. This guy had a drowning experience as a kid.

In reponse Keith Obermann donated $10,000 to Vet Charity. Sean Hannity would said he would be waterboarded for charity has not yet done so.

The United States does not Torture....it is a basic value of this country.

Bush and Cheney broke that trust. Them's the facts.

I respect your feelings COLOGAL......and ask you this question (actually TWO questions)....

We waterboarded THREE (3) people and only 3. It was shortly after the attack on our country. It was on 3 people who could have info on other planned attacks.

Question ONE...under those circumstances am I understanding you would NOT waterboard to get this information in order to protect our values ?

QUESTION TWO.....when you allude to "One of your own" as you did...what are you referrring to...color, religion, nationality...what exactly does "One of your own" mean ? Are you a member of some select organization and others are on the outside ?

So you're saying you'd rather see thousands of innocent people killed in an attack rather than to water board a terrorist who has information about it?

I guess Obama does.

It's been reported on the news that the water boarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed directly produced information that lead to the arrest of several terrorists planning an immanent attack on the Brooklyn Bridge. Death toll they say during rush hour could have been ten thousand people.

It's typical bleeding heart liberal double speak... until it's their family.

[QUOTE=cologal;205233]The United States does not Torture....it is a basic value of this country.


I agree that this has been a value of this country for many many years. But times and people change. And when we find that our enemies now are flying planes into buildings or plotting to blow up bridges in rush hour or tunnels at rush hour or exploding dirty bombs on US soil then I suggest we maybe should look at how that impacts our long standing values and find out what we need to do to protect ourselves as best we can.

Is it torture if the individual could die, be permanently injured, or endured significant pain? or

Is it torture if the individual is scared s******* during the procedure, even though the individual is in no danger of being injured or killed?

Those who have voluntarily endured water boarding as an experiment or out of curiosity are not credible in their assessment of the procedure, as they had nothing at stake. They knew the procedure would be terminated as soon as they said it would be, and thus had full control of the situation.

When time is of the essence to acquire information valuable to save lives and prevent additional victims of terrorism, debating with a terrorist or criminal over opinions on morality and/or politics is rarely successful due to the immorality of the terrorist/criminal and/or zealot-like political stance and the time window of need for the imfornation. So, non-lethal, non-injurious but darned-right frightening procedures are applied to "get the information" before more deaths/injuries occur from further terrorist/criminal actions.

In a perfect world, the captured individual would simply say, "Okay, you got me, here's everything I know so that no one else becomes a casualty." Unfortunately, the "perfect" scenario doesn't exist.

Let me get this straight: if waterboarding is torture, then the policy of the US is to torture members of our own armed services but not the 3 people who hold the keys to future terrorist attacks against our country. It would seem that those are very distorted morals if you ask me.

If the individual could die, be permanently injured, or endured significant pain.....that is torture.....water boarding is none of those. It is a political escapade that the world is once again watching and laughing at us.

As I have said before, many who elect to stay the high ground on the issue of whether to waterboard or not or even torture or not. For those who have nothing invested....it is so easy to inteelectualize the concepts.

Now let's hypothesize an individual has information leading to the where abouts of YOUR family member(s) who are about to be beaten, raped, tortured and then beheaded. Now I wonder how far one would want the authorities to go to find the information needed to save the family.

Or how about he knows the where abouts of a nuclear device that may be planted in your home location.

I am all for do what ever it takes to get the information to save American lives.....for all you others I hope and pray you are never put in a position to have to EAT CROW on the subject.

BTK

Originally Posted by Bucco

I respect your feelings COLOGAL......and ask you this question (actually TWO questions)....

We waterboarded THREE (3) people and only 3. It was shortly after the attack on our country. It was on 3 people who could have info on other planned attacks.

Question ONE...under those circumstances am I understanding you would NOT waterboard to get this information in order to protect our values ?

QUESTION TWO.....when you allude to "One of your own" as you did...what are you referring to...color, religion, nationality...what exactly does "One of your own" mean ? Are you a member of some select organization and others are on the outside ?

The answer to #2 is.. Erich Mancow Muller, a conservative radio talk show host, was waterboarded. He repeatedly stated that waterboarding was NOT torture and wanted to prove that. Oh well... now he understands what this really was. The one of your own comment referred to the fact he was a conservative....

As for #1...What good are our values if we abandon them so quickly? We tried people for war crimes on this same issue. How can we hold the moral high ground now? Also, there are various claims out there about the value of the information....one reports Cheney's office demanded this procedure to prove a link between Hussein and Al-Qaeda existed. It didn't exist. If this is true then the waterboarding of at least one terrorist was done for self serving reasons.

I have two nephews in the military...one of which has been to Iraq 4 times, wounded once. These tactics put them at risk should they be captured.

My mother used to always say this to me...."Don't sink to their level"

Seems to be a good point here.

My mother used to always say this to me...."Don't sink to their level"

It's not about sinking to their level, it's about saving thousands of American lives through intel gained from interrogation of captured terrorists... which already has saved thousands of lives and apparently will no longer save thousands of lives.

I guess water boarding can be pretty scary to the terrorist who's getting wet. Wonder how the people felt in the twin towers as they plummeted to their death? Or the passengers on the planes who had time to ponder their fate? Or the kids who's daddy or mommy didn't come home from work that day? Or the mothers and fathers who would never see their children again?

Sorry, everything changed after that and I hold no sympathy for terrorists and as far as I'm concerned they have lost all rights to anything.

I believe it was John McCain who said, that's who THEY are, it's not who WE are.

John McCain got just about every bone in his body broken not to mention that his arms are practically crippled from the years of torture and beatings.

What we are taking about here is totally different. We are talking about a group of people who's entire goal in life is to kill as many innocent men, woman and children as they possibly can and ways that we have at our disposal to prevent that.

I am not interested in protecting the rights of terrorists over our own families.

Water boarding directly prevented the death of thousands of people on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Are you willing to trade???

On this morning's George Stephanapolous show, the panel of commentators ranging from far right (George Will) to far left (Donna Brazile) and a couple in the right and left middle (David Brooks and E.J. Dionne), all agreed on what President Obama's current position was relative to national security in general and the jailed terrorists in Guantanamo. They agreed that Obama's current position is almost exactly the same as President Bush's on the same issues.

They went on to agree that the "debate" between President Obama, Dick Cheney and other members of Congress was essentially political noise-making and that neither side could truly identify substantial differences in the position, beliefs or policy of "their side" versus that of the other.

Mine will be the 26th post in this thread. There have been many "back and forth" comments about which person and which political party truly has the correct slant on national security, when in fact there is virtually no difference in the beliefs and values of either side. I guess we hear what we want to hear from the politicians, depending on which side we're backing.

Enhanced interrogation techniques directly prevented the death of thousands of people on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Who is willing to trade???

Originally Posted by billethkid

If the individual could die, be permanently injured, or endured significant pain.....that is torture.....water boarding is none of those. It is a political escapade that the world is once again watching and laughing at us.

As I have said before, many who elect to stay the high ground on the issue of whether to waterboard or not or even torture or not. For those who have nothing invested....it is so easy to inteelectualize the concepts.

Now let's hypothesize an individual has information leading to the where abouts of YOUR family member(s) who are about to be beaten, raped, tortured and then beheaded. Now I wonder how far one would want the authorities to go to find the information needed to save the family.

Or how about he knows the where abouts of a nuclear device that may be planted in your home location.

I am all for do what ever it takes to get the information to save American lives.....for all you others I hope and pray you are never put in a position to have to EAT CROW on the subject.

BTK

I could not have said it better.

I understand the whole moral high ground argument but let's take a real world example.

On TV just the other night the head of NY's Counter Terrorism department said information they received as a result of the enhanced interrogation techniques used on the 9/11 mastermind led them to the exact address of a group that was also planning to take down the Brooklyn Bridge at rush hour. There they found all the goodies to carry out the plan including engineering drawings of the bridge with exact explosive placements. According to engineers it would have taken the bridge down killing as many as ten thousand people.

So it's a simple question in regards to using enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorists. Let's get down to the nuts and bolts if we are ever in the same situation again.

Who is willing to trade?

I'll start. NOT ME.