Wooo, Endorse Torture, Go! (2 Viewers)

[withoutaface]

The US Senate has appointed Michael Mukasey as new Attorney General of the home of the brave and the land of the free. Except that the upper house is filled with cowards who abstained from voting on the appointment (Clinton, Obama, Dodd, Biden and McCain, I'm looking at you), and the land's not so free anymore because the A-G "doesn't know" whether waterboarding qualifies as torture.

 

[Stevo.]

Waterboarding is a torture technique that simulates drowning in a controlled environment. It consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face[1] to force the inhalation of water into the lungs.[2] Waterboarding has been used to obtain information, coerce confessions, punish, and intimidate. In contrast to merely submerging the head, waterboarding elicits the gag reflex,[3] and can make the subject believe death is imminent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding

The more you know.

 

[Iron]

Someone has to say it,
Why hasnt Bush been impeached? I dont think the war is a good enough reason.

 

[volition]

refusal to brand the terror interrogation technique of waterboarding as torture.

Wow this Mukasey guy must be a real prick eh.

More than two-thirds of the respondents, or 69 percent, said they think waterboarding is a form of torture, while 29 percent said they didn't think so. Fifty-eight percent said they didn't think the U.S. government should be allowed to use the procedure to try to get information from suspected terrorists, while 40 percent said they did.

I find this pretty interesting, because those numbers indicate that some people are ok with the government using torture. What is the world coming to?

Why hasnt Bush been impeached?

I agree, people worry so much about "finding Osama", when right in their own midst, we PRETTY MUCH know right where George Bush is! It really makes you wonder whether society actually does find killing abhorrent or not.

 

[jb_nc]

Someone has to say it,
Why hasnt Bush been impeached? I dont think the war is a good enough reason.

Kucinich had a motion to impeach Cheny in the House last week but it was defeated by Democrats who sent it to the Committees.

I'd doubt he would be convicted in the Senate though.

 

[Enteebee]

I find this pretty interesting, because those numbers indicate that some people are ok with the government using torture. What is the world coming to?

If torture was an effective tool for getting information out of people that could save lives, it might be more acceptable. Most people believe it is an effective tool - Maybe it is in some cases?

 

[jimmayyy]

The US Senate has appointed Michael Mukasey as new Attorney General of the home of the brave and the land of the free. Except that the upper house is filled with cowards who abstained from voting on the appointment (Clinton, Obama, Dodd, Biden and McCain, I'm looking at you), and the land's not so free anymore because the A-G "doesn't know" whether waterboarding qualifies as torture.

its hardly an endorsement for torture, dude. that equation lacks gravitas even for you.

 

[MaNiElla]

If torture was an effective tool for getting information out of people that could save lives, it might be more acceptable. Most people believe it is an effective tool - Maybe it is in some cases?

As much as i hate to think/talk about torture and all, i gotta admit that it is necessary in some cases.

 

[banco55]

I strongly suspect that the information that the US gained from using techniques like water boarding has been easliy outweighed by the damage to their reputation.

 

[jb_nc]

As much as i hate to think/talk about torture and all, i gotta admit that it is necessary in some cases.

No, no, torture is never necessary because it doesn't work!

 

[withoutaface]

You reach a threshold at which point any good information is cancelled out by the amount of false confessions.

 

[banco55]

You reach a threshold at which point any good information is cancelled out by the amount of false confessions.

Which you then cross-reference with other info. If you arrest two members of a cell you can check their info etc.

 

[xeuyrawp]

If torture was an effective tool for getting information out of people that could save lives, it might be more acceptable. Most people believe it is an effective tool - Maybe it is in some cases?

You reach a threshold at which point any good information is cancelled out by the amount of false confessions.

Yes but obviously the main issue is that it's impossible to regulate it because it's ethically dubious.

It's (relative to this) easy for common law to regulate some things that have no legislatory guides; reasonable person tests, use of common sense, drawing from society, and all that crap.

But when it comes to torture, how would you set arbitrary guidelines? 'A person may come to a level 5 amount of harm if it results in 5 people not coming to death. Two people may come to a level 6 amount of harm...'? The case is that common sense just can't apply in a lot of probable hypothetical situations, and society rightly condemns torture.

Torture will end up being used as a quick-check of innocence, rather than a source of information, even when, as you said, confessions are frequently tainted anyway. It's obviously a slippery area of ethics and I think the best solution is simply to never go there - as we've seen with this guy who got picked up at Blacktown, even a remotely bad investigation can seriously screw up the case.

 

[what971]

Sif care though what the AG does or says, all power rests with Scalia, Thomas and the rest of the right-wing boys in the Supreme Court anyway.

 

[withoutaface]

Rob: My point was that this threshold generally rests at the point where you go from (relatively) tame stuff like sleep deprivation to waterboarding, and so I generally agree with your assessment.

 

[xeuyrawp]

Rob: My point was that this threshold generally rests at the point where you go from (relatively) tame stuff like sleep deprivation to waterboarding, and so I generally agree with your assessment.

Yeah absolutely, totally agree. Just felt like I should throw in the other points that there are other practicalities involved if a government wanted to condone it on any level.