Yep, I have to agree, if you think we should be torturing prisoners than say that.
Changing the name does not make it any less of torture than when we named it a war crime back in 1947 when the techniques were used *against* americans instead of *by* americans.
If that is the only difference than there should be criminal proceedings against those that authorized the "enhanced interrogation" techniques.
I can imagine the same cartoon with a mushroom cloud instead of the twin towers with the caption "65,000 reasons to torture."
If I had to decide between an atomic bombing of an American City with a loss of 65,000 American lives (or even 2974) and torturing a terrorist (i.e. physical and/or psychological pain) don't be standing between me and the waterboard. I could not care less about the opinions of a European court that would not even exist if it were not for American blood and treasure.
Adrienne, I am surprised at you. Weren't you the one who abhored the rapist so much that they should have their thingy cut off because of what they did? It was in a blog of yours some time ago, then again, maybe it was somebody that was responding to your blog.
It is unfortunate that the word "torture" is so inclusive. It would be much better to understand gradations. When a little boy approaches a little girl with a bug so that she squeels with alarm does that fit into the term "torture"? Of course, it is OK to say: "Stop torturing her" to get him to stop, but are we really thinking about an abuse of the Geneva Conventions? After all, the little girl will take actions to get out of the vicinity of the bug, she is truly uncomfortable. What punishment do you give the little boy for this disruption of the girls tranquility?
There are gradations…..They may say stop torturing her, but as any good verbivore can tell you, what they mean is stop tormenting her. Same root, but a major difference. Abu Ghraib was torment.
Torture has an element of coercion or punishment torment is sadistic and done for personal pleasure. Given the people involved in this I can see the confusion.
So the Japanese should have tortured more american prisoners of war. Or perhaps should have tortured them harder. Maybe then they wouldn't have lost 65,000 in one shot. What is good for the goose...
Please keep in mind the two wars being discussed here are two VERY different wars. The same torture of an American probably would not have prevented the bomb or saved 65,000 lives. However, the torturing of terrorists has led to no attacks and the saving of many American lives. I want our country using the most effective ways possible to prevent future attacks. The group with the most effective techniques wins the war. I want our side to win. Tracy
Who decides what is torture and what is not? It seems to me a certain group which has a huge agenda to discredit any and everything Bush/Republican won the media/public relations war and granted themselves the right to define the last 8 years in the light of their own bias.
Is waterboarding torture? Does the military torture its own members in the name of training? If your answer to the first is yes then so is your answer to the second. I've been through it, it sucks while its happening but I walked away from it unharmed. If this technique gives results, which even former members of the Clinton Administration says it does, then I say go for it!
Well, I believe we can pull in Ronald Reagan (another republican icon we love to discredit) on the question of "what is torture?" since he fought for and signed the UN Convention Against Torture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_Against_Torture) in 1984. He recognized waterboarding as torture at that time. We didn't invent this just to discredit Bush.
Bush, et al. decided that they needed to redefine what torture was so they could make the claim that they did not torture. So they simply renamed it "enhanced interrogation" and suddenly they stopped torturing. Blaming the liberal media for reporting that what we are doing *is* torture is disingenuous.
Our point is that changing the name to keep yourself this side of the law, does not change the action. "I didn't steal this TV officer, I liberated it from that house."
The fact that we do it to our own forces for training--whew, that is another can of worms. If there weren't 6000 other reasons keeping me out of the armed forces, that would do it. The first drop of water and I would sing like a canary. I wouldn't care if it was just training, I would tell them everything. I would tell them about that time in high school when I... never mind.
You are correct of course that President Reagan lobbied for and urged the Senate to ratify the UN Convention against Torture. However nowhere does it address specific acts defining torture only guidelines "torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession". I believe that in the aftermath of the 911 attacks, President Bush went to his lawyers for a legal decision on how far interrogations can go. Maybe it they asked about specific actions, and maybe the laywers tried to tell them what they thought they wanted to hear. I don't know, I wasn't in the room. But, I don't believe that water boarding necessarily fits the UN definition of torture, maybe it does to some. Certainly they are degrees to any action and gray areas. I am very much opposed to the use of torture on both moral and practical grounds.
10 comments:
A Rose by any other name.......
A skunk still smells like a skunk...
Call it what ever makes you feel okay with it, but TORTURE is still TORTURE and it is still ILLEGAL under the Geneva Pact.
Yep, I have to agree, if you think we should be torturing prisoners than say that.
Changing the name does not make it any less of torture than when we named it a war crime back in 1947 when the techniques were used *against* americans instead of *by* americans.
If that is the only difference than there should be criminal proceedings against those that authorized the "enhanced interrogation" techniques.
I can imagine the same cartoon with a mushroom cloud instead of the twin towers with the caption "65,000 reasons to torture."
If I had to decide between an atomic bombing of an American City with a loss of 65,000 American lives (or even 2974) and torturing a terrorist (i.e. physical and/or psychological pain) don't be standing between me and the waterboard. I could not care less about the opinions of a European court that would not even exist if it were not for American blood and treasure.
Adrienne, I am surprised at you. Weren't you the one who abhored the rapist so much that they should have their thingy cut off because of what they did? It was in a blog of yours some time ago, then again, maybe it was somebody that was responding to your blog.
It is unfortunate that the word "torture" is so inclusive. It would be much better to understand gradations. When a little boy approaches a little girl with a bug so that she squeels with alarm does that fit into the term "torture"? Of course, it is OK to say: "Stop torturing her" to get him to stop, but are we really thinking about an abuse of the Geneva Conventions? After all, the little girl will take actions to get out of the vicinity of the bug, she is truly uncomfortable. What punishment do you give the little boy for this disruption of the girls tranquility?
There are gradations…..They may say stop torturing her, but as any good verbivore can tell you, what they mean is stop tormenting her. Same root, but a major difference. Abu Ghraib was torment.
Torture has an element of coercion or punishment torment is sadistic and done for personal pleasure. Given the people involved in this I can see the confusion.
za
So the Japanese should have tortured more american prisoners of war. Or perhaps should have tortured them harder. Maybe then they wouldn't have lost 65,000 in one shot. What is good for the goose...
Please keep in mind the two wars being discussed here are two VERY different wars. The same torture of an American probably would not have prevented the bomb or saved 65,000 lives. However, the torturing of terrorists has led to no attacks and the saving of many American lives. I want our country using the most effective ways possible to prevent future attacks. The group with the most effective techniques wins the war. I want our side to win.
Tracy
Who decides what is torture and what is not? It seems to me a certain group which has a huge agenda to discredit any and everything Bush/Republican won the media/public relations war and granted themselves the right to define the last 8 years in the light of their own bias.
Is waterboarding torture? Does the military torture its own members in the name of training? If your answer to the first is yes then so is your answer to the second. I've been through it, it sucks while its happening but I walked away from it unharmed. If this technique gives results, which even former members of the Clinton Administration says it does, then I say go for it!
Well, I believe we can pull in Ronald Reagan (another republican icon we love to discredit) on the question of "what is torture?" since he fought for and signed the UN Convention Against Torture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_Against_Torture) in 1984. He recognized waterboarding as torture at that time. We didn't invent this just to discredit Bush.
Bush, et al. decided that they needed to redefine what torture was so they could make the claim that they did not torture. So they simply renamed it "enhanced interrogation" and suddenly they stopped torturing. Blaming the liberal media for reporting that what we are doing *is* torture is disingenuous.
Our point is that changing the name to keep yourself this side of the law, does not change the action. "I didn't steal this TV officer, I liberated it from that house."
The fact that we do it to our own forces for training--whew, that is another can of worms. If there weren't 6000 other reasons keeping me out of the armed forces, that would do it. The first drop of water and I would sing like a canary. I wouldn't care if it was just training, I would tell them everything. I would tell them about that time in high school when I... never mind.
You are correct of course that President Reagan lobbied for and urged the Senate to ratify the UN Convention against Torture. However nowhere does it address specific acts defining torture only guidelines "torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession". I believe that in the aftermath of the 911 attacks, President Bush went to his lawyers for a legal decision on how far interrogations can go. Maybe it they asked about specific actions, and maybe the laywers tried to tell them what they thought they wanted to hear. I don't know, I wasn't in the room. But, I don't believe that water boarding necessarily fits the UN definition of torture, maybe it does to some. Certainly they are degrees to any action and gray areas. I am very much opposed to the use of torture on both moral and practical grounds.
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