Waterboarding saved British Lives

[HBK-aholic]

George Bush has recently made this claim, and the debate is ongoing as to whether the form of torture can ever be justified. I'm currently reading the opinions of 2 men who lost children in the 7/7 bombings, who believe in these tough circumstances, waterboarding should be used - we should put the lives of innocent people before the human rights of terrorists.

Others are arguing torture can never be justified, as there is no way of knowing truly if someone knows what you need to know, and torture makes us just as bad as the terrorists.

I'm inclined to agree with the first opinion. If this form of torture could have been used to stop 9/11 or 7/7 would you really have said no to using it? I'm not FOR using it per se, but I think there are some circumstances where, when faced with 2 evils, this is the best option. It shouldn't be common practice, and certainly shouldn't be used unless there's definitive proof the suspect knows where and when an attack is going to happen, but I'd rather save hundreds, maybe thousands of lives - possibly those of my own family, than worry about the 'human rights' of the scum who don't deserve to be called human.

What do you think? Can this ever be justified? If you could have given this call, knowing it'd prevent 9/11, would you?

 

[Loveless]

However many lives it saved in this case, it's almost certainly cost them somewhere else.

We went over this in psychology many years ago. The problem with torture is people don't all respond in the same way. Some people will actually clam up even further once they feel they've been badly treated, some will give deliberately false information, some will give it simply because they don't know anything. The end result in all these cases is that peoples lives are put at risk. These practices are illegal for a reason and it's not to protect the person being tortured.

 

[Kenny Powers]

Torture wouldn't prevent anything, especially the attacks on 9/11. Maybe if President Bush would have listen to his CIA directors when he was on vacation in summer of 2001, then maybe the US could have prevented the attacks. The top military and CIA directors have said that torture is not effective. It is also barbaric and against the Geneva Convention. Has there ever been any proof of torture working to prevent hostile acts?

Torture is like locking your child up in a room so that he won't go outside and skin his knee or get abducted. This isn't going to save your child. Does anyone really think a suicide bomber will tell the truth even if he is tortured? Even if someone does talk, is the information even accurate? If you torture someone long enough they will confess to everything from starting the Chicago fire to inventing the toaster oven, but that doesn't make it true.

 

[Tastycles]

Well, Barack Obama stopped water-boarding Al Qaeda suspects, and there's not been an attack on anywhere in the Western world during his presidency, and since Tony Blair stopped the torture of IRA soldiers, they pretty much stopped bombing Britain. While I don't think that Bush is lying, I think he's missing the bigger picture. You can almost map the intensity of terrorist attacks directly to how hard-line the state that they are happening to is.

While I don't doubt that individual terrorist atrocities were no doubt stopped by using torture, the use of it is part of the problem. Torturing people gives terrorists fuel to the fire because it makes their accusations of repression etc. true. I'm not saying that a softly softly approach is always right, and I think Bush was right to go into Afghanistan, but you reap what you sow when it comes to these people, and the historical precedent is, ironically, that if you didn't torture people, you wouldn't need to.

 

[Davi323]

Actually, all Barack Obama did was allow allied foreign governments do it instead, while the US continues to collect the intelligence gathered from it.

And you have to be fucking kidding about there not being further attacks. In case you missed it, they just caught a bunch of bombs on airplanes inside of toner that were headed to the US.

They don't commit terrorist acts if we don't waterboard? Who was waterboarded prior to 9/11 that led to the attack? Who was waterboarded before Bin Laden masterminded the bombing of the USS Cole? Who was waterboarded prior to the previous failed attempts at bombing the World Trade Centers in 1993?

The reason there haven't been successful attacks is because we are getting better at catching them before the act, not because of interrogation techniques.

 

[People's Champ]

I don't agree with torture, no matter if people think its actually benefical. In fact, I haven't seen how waterboarding, or any other form of torture for that matter, helps prevent anything. Most of information, I'm sure, is inaccurate. They will say whatever to get out of being tortured without actually giving up anything. So no matter what's said, I don't believe torture in the form of waterboarding helps prevent attacks, nor do I agree with it in general.

 

[Navi]

I don't agree with torture either, but when you're at war sometimes you have to do things you don't agree with.

That being said, there is no point in torturing these guys. If they're willing to blow themselves up to prove a point, nothing the CIA could do can faze them. Some of the guys being held in Guantanamo Bay are the worst of the worst and they don't give a shit. All they want to do is take out the infidels, torturing them just strengthens their resolve and brings us down to their level.

The way Al Quida works they probably don't know all that much. They work in cells and no one is given the whole plan just in case they get caught. Once they are captured, the plans are changed and new people are brought in.

In this case the US has got itself into a situation where they have to keep these people locked up indefinitely or face their vengeance if and when they ever return home.

 

[Goliath Uterus]

If being used properly, I think torture is a great way to squeeze valuable information out of people. Terrorists definitlely deserve to be tortured, and if they're not going to talk, torture the fuck out of 'em. They're pieces of shit anyway and who knows, maybe they'll tell you something important.

If they're willing to blow themselves up to prove a point, nothing the CIA could do can faze them

Blowing yourself up takes seconds, being tortured is much worse than that. I would bet millions that the govt. has gotten info they woulnd't have gotten if not for torture.

 

[SalvIsWin]

It's a matter of precedent, and whether you are comfortable setting one. If you allow the use of water-boarding to interrogate suspects, then you're essentially opening up every avenue of torture to be used. Who's the say, 'This is acceptable torture, but this isn't', or 'This is an acceptable way of protecting who we perceive to be potential victims, but this isn't.' Who's to say what level of proof is adequate before you can commence torture? What would you say to someone who thinks that it would be justified to kill the family of an individual suspected of having information that could save thousands of lives? Would you agree, would you disagree? Does it cross a line because it kills innocents? Is that justifiable because it has the potential to save thousands?

These are the kinds of questions you have to answer when you set a precedent like this. There's a similar issue about disobeying orders. Should an officer be able to disregard an order from a superior officer because they feel it could have adverse consequences? What if the officer feels that doing so would endanger the life of an innocent, and that an alternative way would be much safer for all parties involved? Would disobeying the order be justified?

There's an argument made by some that relies on hindsight. Such that, if you look back to the 50's, 60's, and 70's, there were politicians, generals, and soldiers who disagreed with the idea to go to Vietnam. I'm confident that at some point a general was given an order that he/she personally disagreed with, and could even cost some of their soldiers their lives. Would they be justified in disregarding that order? If that person disregarded the order and it turns out their actions saved 100 lives, then perhaps you would be fine with that, but what if they were wrong, and that lack of obedience cost 100 lives, perhaps you would disagree then. It sounds like a wash, but at least with obedience you would have a consistency.

The point is that allowing torture sets a dangerous precedent. You can't always have persons you feel are competent making these subjective decisions. You also can't criticize another countries or groups own subjective methods then, because you agree that a specific amount or level of torture is acceptable, but under the circumstances you're dictating, which is of course absurd.

 

[RockFan89]

When I think about the torture debate, I always draw the analogy to nuclear weapons. Do I support dropping atomic bombs on 100,000 people? No, when you ask it like that. But in the context of WWII, I'd say it was the right thing to do.

The same goes with torture. Do I support torture? No, but when put in the context of Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, I'd say we need to consider all of our options.

And on the moral argument, I'm not sure how anyone can say that water boarding one or two suspected terrorists to save the lives of 1,000 people is wrong.

Additionally, we must come up with a definition of what torture is to have a substantive discussion on the issue. If someone is terrified of bugs and we stick that person in the same room as with a caterpillar, is that torture? Is blaring the Red Hot Chili Peppers considered torture? Is sleep deprivation torture?

I hope those against torture can see that the issue is far more complicated and a simple "we are better than that" argument cannot suffice.

 

[SalvIsWin]

When I think about the torture debate, I always draw the analogy to nuclear weapons. Do I support dropping atomic bombs on 100,000 people? No, when you ask it like that. But in the context of WWII, I'd say it was the right thing to do.

The same goes with torture. Do I support torture? No, but when put in the context of Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, I'd say we need to consider all of our options.

And on the moral argument, I'm not sure how anyone can say that water boarding one or two suspected terrorists to save the lives of 1,000 people is wrong.

Additionally, we must come up with a definition of what torture is to have a substantive discussion on the issue. If someone is terrified of bugs and we stick that person in the same room as with a caterpillar, is that torture? Is blaring the Red Hot Chili Peppers considered torture? Is sleep deprivation torture?

I hope those against torture can see that the issue is far more complicated and a simple "we are better than that" argument cannot suffice.

Perhaps, but the use and possession of nuclear weapons is an enormous double standard. When the U.S.A dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, it set a precedent that the killing of innocents was justifiable to prevent possible further atrocities. Now that precedent has been skewed now by years of countries saying that no new nuclear weapons should be made, that they are inhumane to use, and that only under the most extreme of circumstance should they be deployed again. This is a moral stance in my opinion, but you have to feel that there are other interests at play, such as that it is in the best interest of countries possessing nuclear weapons to limit their further production, as that increases the odds of other countries gaining their use. Furthermore, the U.S.A have toyed with the idea of apologizing for the use of the nuclear weapon in World War II, but have refrained for various interests.

I would say that using Hiroshima and Nagasaki as examples for the use of torture is actually counterproductive to your argument. The nuclear weapon use is seen as widely regrettable, further legislation has all but banned their future use, and if it weren't for other tangibles, I feel the U.S.A would have apologized long ago.

 

[RockFan89]

Perhaps, but the use and possession of nuclear weapons is an enormous double standard. When the U.S.A dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, it set a precedent that the killing of innocents was justifiable to prevent possible further atrocities. Now that precedent has been skewed now by years of countries saying that no new nuclear weapons should be made, that they are inhumane to use, and that only under the most extreme of circumstance should they be deployed again. This is a moral stance in my opinion, but you have to feel that there are other interests at play, such as that it is in the best interest of countries possessing nuclear weapons to limit their further production, as that increases the odds of other countries gaining their use. Furthermore, the U.S.A have toyed with the idea of apologizing for the use of the nuclear weapon in World War II, but have refrained for various interests.

I would say that using Hiroshima and Nagasaki as examples for the use of torture is actually counterproductive to your argument. The nuclear weapon use is seen as widely regrettable, further legislation has all but banned their future use, and if it weren't for other tangibles, I feel the U.S.A would have apologized long ago.

I take issue with your premise that the use of nuclear weapons is widely seen as "regrettable." The only people I hear taking issue with the bombing are extremely liberal. Most people realize that when you compare the number of lives that could have been lost in a ground invasion to those lost in these attacks, Truman did the right thing. Remember, Japan didn't even surrender after the first bomb was dropped, so I'm not sure what alternative solution would have worked in this situation.

 

[gd]

Not really big on torture, myself. You know when else torture was used? During the witch trials, and that didn't go all that well, now did it?

It's not so much about the human rights part, since if you're a terrorist planning to kill tons and tons of people, you shouldn't really be getting great treatment or anything.

It's more about the whole false info thing. You can never really be sure if someone knows something, so you could be torturing them for absolutely not reason, leading to false info, meaning you tortured them for nothing, meaning you're a dick. That ain't good, bro.

 

[Minnesota Connection]

It all comes down to what you believe in.

We are fighting this war in Afghanistan to protect our democracy or so it has been claimed, if that is true, how are we protecting our government and this democracy when the values that we should be upholding are compromised by people who have weak moral conviction and even weaker will for human rights?

Just saying, that if we want to set an example to the world... Britain and the U.S. have not set a good example at all. We say one thing, do another and wonder why things are the way they are.

Not to mention a more domestic case, there were seven military personal that were prosecuted and one after another admitted that they had committed the crime... Yet not one of those military personal did commit the crime. So, in other words.

People say the damnedest things when they are tortured, who's to say they are going to give you the right information? Who's to say he knows absolutely nothing and he just wants to stop the torture, so he'll say whatever you wanna hear.