Waterboarding...

[GunTroll]

Its been posted here before but I think its needed again.



Bring it!


ETA: I doubt this happened for real but it does have a ring to it

[Troublco]

Even in this war, there will eventually be a peace. Atrosities, tortures, violations of the geneva convention and the helsinki accords lengthens that time. Justifying our violations because they did one thing or another is irrelevent. It's an arguement rife with faulty logic. We can't control their actions, but we are capible of controlling our own. The difference is rolling into a village in Iraq and Afghanistan and having maybe one or two hostiles not willing to do anything vs rolling into the same village and everyone is willing to die to kill you.

There is a time and place for everything. The time and place for these tactics are very very very rare, and I have yet to have seen it appropriate in any aspect of either war. Considering I've been involved in the targeting, capturing, killing (through Ke strike), and interrogation of a few of these guys, I might have a clue.

SA Friday, I think you have a very valid point and I'd tend to defer to you on these things. I'm not advocating that we shoot every Iraqi, Afghani, or whomever. I do think that when the need arises, we should do what needs done. But then every armchair quarterback in this country comes swarming out and second guesses the action out of context, and the operator is the one that seems to wind up in the crosshairs.

I must be the "bleeding heart liberal", which makes me laugh; who wants to "cry for the extremists" even though I said no such thing. I have a different opinion on whether it's in our best interests torture people and I'm OK with that; so call me whatever you want.

Whatever, if you don't want us to follow our own rule of law when we deal with another actor, then don't gripe when they do the same, I suppose.

I think the only thing else I'll say is that if the situation was reversed, and another country controlled our land, the members of this forum would be the irregulars not in uniform with guns making them pay.

Most of the people in Iraqi and Afghanistan never met an Al Queda agent, they just don't like having another country rolling through their streets. How many relatives would you have to lose before you decided to make some IED's? How many kids were 10 years old when we came, saw their fathers bagged and taken away, are 17 now and want revenge?

A lot of problem stems from treating all these people as if they're just Haji's who flew planes into WTC, and it just isn't the case.

o7 Peace out

I didn't say liberal, and I wasn't referring specifically to you. (I don't happen to like the term liberal.) If you choose to take it that way, that's up to you. You're entitled to your opinion, just like I am. I was referring, basically, to the legion of armchair quarterbacks who seem to want to give more rights to the extremist militants than to our people, servicemembers or otherwise. If you want to take what I said personally, go ahead.

So if I don't think we should treat them with velvet gloves, I shouldn't be able to voice my opinion when they ACTUALLY torture and murder people, whether it's ours or their own countrymen? Hm. And "they" generally aren't Iraqis. Most of them are Foreign Fighters. So much for fighting for their homeland.

I actually do know some Iraqis, Jordanians, and Saudis. They're a lot like us, want to live their lives, raise their children, and so on. And I don't recall referring to them. I specifically said, muslim extremists. Al Qaeda, Taliban, that sort.

You don't have to like my opinion, or your interpretation of my opinion. I don't have to like yours. That's the beautiful thing about this country. You couldn't say that about Iraq or Afghanistan, prior to 9/11. I wonder how many Iraqis (the normal, rank and file folks; not Baath party members and other beneficiaries of the former regime) would really want Saddam back, instead of us giving them the opportunity to choose their own path. Same with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

[ChunkyMonkey]

nvm

[theGinsue]

+1

If a little waterboarding stops another 9/11, it doesn't bother my consience one little bit if some terrorist gets a little wet.

Waterboarding is torture? Boo-Hoo, my pussy hurts....

Kept alive in solitary at ADX Florence they may have a change of heart and decide to help us, even 10 years later we could gain insight into the mindset that is our real enemy. At worst, they hold their beliefs until the day they die, unable to communicate with others.

That position is naive. See the post by MB888 below for better insight into how the extremists think. They know that we are weak for our liberal attitudes and our desire to provide foregiveness. They will/do play us against our own weaknesses and bide their time until they can take advantage of those weaknesses to kill us. They are fully committed to their beliefs and won't be having a change of heart because we have shown them "a better way" while we had them imprisoned. Look at the stats on the former Guantanemo detainees who've been returned to Middle-Eastern countries. Most of them return to pro-jihad/anti-American activities.

And "unable to communicate"? Why, because they are imprisoned? You'd better recheck your premise on that one. They can do nearly as much damage from prison as they can "free" men. It's been proven that entire criminal syndicates and terrorist activities have been coordinated from U.S. prisons.

[quote=Hoosier;165318So when our troops get captured, they should be lined up and shot, and we're just like, "Ok, that's fair and reasonable."[/quote]

They aren't already? True national military forces (typically) follow rules of engagement but militants/rebels/terrorists do not. These people capture soldiers and either kill them right off or torture them and then kill (often by beheading) them while recording it so they can use it as propaganda or, in rare cases where there have another goal they are trying to acheive, release the prisoner after extended imprisonment. These people do NOT follow any of what we like to call civilized rules of engagement - they fight to the death - either theirs or the other guys.

I grew up within one of those fundamentalist enclavements. I woke up every morning watching kid cartoons that taught that killing infidels is a good thing, I was taught to marry infidel women and to assimilate them into islamic culture. I like to assume I know islamic fundamentalist better than most people I know here.

To think that we are better so we should not use a certain method that is considered torture by some is almost self fish.

These fundamentalist would fight you, lost the battle, dropped their weapons, asked for your forgiveness (or currently in afghan, walk away from their position), only to kill you on the very next opportunity. Most of them have been brainwashed and fail to see what we are doing is 'better' or more 'humane.' In their eyes - these are our weaknesses!

Perhaps I have witnessed too much, but I personally HATE extremists and will not treat them as equal human being as they do not see me as one.

My 2 cent!

Thank you for your post. You helped to validate what I already understood to be the truth.

[SA Friday]

I grew up within one of those fundamentalist enclavements. I woke up every morning watching kid cartoons that taught that killing infidels is a good thing, I was taught to marry infidel women and to assimilate them into islamic culture. I like to assume I know islamic fundamentalist better than most people I know here.

To think that we are better so we should not use a certain method that is considered torture by some is almost self fish.

These fundamentalist would fight you, lost the battle, dropped their weapons, asked for your forgiveness (or currently in afghan, walk away from their position), only to kill you on the very next opportunity. Most of them have been brainwashed and fail to see what we are doing is 'better' or more 'humane.' In their eyes - these are our weaknesses!

Perhaps I have witnessed too much, but I personally HATE extremists and will not treat them as equal human being as they do not see me as one.

My 2 cent!

This is very interesting stuff, and quite a perspective on how a child becomes an adult willing to fight the muslim extremist cause. I must respectfully point out it has no insight as to what interrogation tactics are effective for the various personalities the interrogators run into when attempting to extract information. Once again, I'll point out the simple fact that we cannot control their actions or philosophies, but we can control ours. It's foolhardy to believe humanity is a weakness. It's humane treatment that pursuades the fence sitters and weakens the terrorist and insurgent movements. Even the most poor and uneducated villager can see the difference between a group that identifies their mistakes and shortcomings and addresses them vs 'en shalla'. I saw it every time I drove into a village.

Hate is both a powerful motivator and a dangerous tool. I personally hated one target in the year and a half I lived in the SWA. We never caught him, and I still feel the failure. The difference is I focused on the personality of the individual and was very careful to not let emotions come into play with groups as a whole. Your persepective of right and wrong when you hate groups of people indiscriminately becomes blurred. You eventually only see the group, dehumanize the group, and ta-daa; you end up with Abu Ghraib prison scandals.

Abu Ghraib really hurt the war effort. Regardless of how anyone feels about it, the damage done from that whole incident was unarguably motivation for the opposition. Iraq and Afghanistan are counterintelligence wars. There are no uniformed troops opposing us and there are no war fronts. Without the ability to collect and identify info on the terrorists and insurgents, we are relegated to mass strikes with collateral damage to civilians instead of surgical strikes which enforce our humanity and intentions to the local populas. Those fence sitters are the information stream for us.

There is a lot to this discussion. It's a lot more than just should we or shouldn't we use water boarding as an interrogation tactic. As I've posted before, water boarding is a tool and has it specific place and time. But be really careful about generalities and rushing to the simple answers in this matter. It's not as simple as tit-for-tat. There are real lives at stake in these matters. That requires a lot of deep critical thinking.

[ChunkyMonkey]

SA Friday, IMHO, insurgent fighters are extremely different from being extremists or terrorists. The first can be won over with security, good deeds, and money. The later is a complete lost cause. Since you had been there, you can testify on this better than me.

As you said "The time and place for these tactics are very very very rare" Rare indeed, but it is legal and it remains one of the interrogation tools, and I completely agree with that!