Waterboarding...

[Hoosier]

"On the battlefield anything goes, line em up when caught and shoot."

So when our troops get captured, they should be lined up and shot, and we're just like, "Ok, that's fair and reasonable."

I mean, you have to be able to perceive the situation from points of view other than your own. Understanding how they perceive it will allow you some insight into how they'll respond. We don't torture, because We. Are. Better. Than They Are. We use to be able to say it. Now we're just hypocrites.

[Ranger353]

So, the entire "moral highground" concept goes out the door. Terrorists can justify terrorism, since anything goes?

Some percentage of the people picked up will be innocent. Should they be murdered as well?

There is a moral difference between combat on the battlefield, and putting a bullet in the head of someone who isn't posing you a risk. 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.

I mean, I can understand saying what you're saying when you're pissed off because they just dropped some of our buildings. In the rational light of day, with reasoning and logic, I don't see how to defend your position.

H.

+1 Back when I was on active duty and had to worry about finding myself in places of the world that the U.S. was not officially suppose to be in, I often thought about how much I was going to be able resist and/or endure before telling "them" something, anything to stay alive. The reality is every person is going to have to make that decision for themselves and then will have to live with the decision.

Same goes for handling enemy combatants. Do I think that waterboarding them is going to yield high levels of information that can be exploited by analysts?

Beats me, I don't know the answer to that, but based on my understanding of what I was going to do, I would say no. Every other word would be fabrications and lies to get through the next few minutes alive.

Do we treat our "enemies" more humanly than they do us? You beat we do. I've seen some of the handy work some of their "specialists" have administered, it almost always involved sharp instruments or nowadays cordless power tools to parts of your body that will leave emotional and physical scars forever, if you survive. Life is a living hell for those unfortunate bastards that get caught on the wrong side of the line, and God help them die a fast death if given the opportunity.

My two cents for the bleeding heart liberals and blood thirsty conservatives.

[Marlin]

We convicted Japanese after WWII for waterboarding...

I'm sure there was a lot more to it than just that... Just saying..

[275RLTW]

1) Torture IS legal and can be authorized from appropriate officials.
2) Do we need the ability to extract information from prisoners? YES
3) Physical torture does have its limits and stipulations therefore information rec'd must be judged accordingly.
4) Are we better than them? When it comes down to your family or your morals, what would you choose? Is one choice wrong ?(Be careful, if you haven't been in this situitation then think about it for a while. It is easy to answer when not in that position, even easier to answer when you are there.)
5) What would be a suitable alternative? Letting them go, bribes, immunity? Could that information be trusted more than info rec'd by torture?

Just some starting thoughts (my opnions aside)....

[BigBear]

Unfortunately, yes. That is the job we sign up for.[/COLOR]

I mean, you have to be able to perceive the situation from points of view other than your own. I can and do, and thus my often unpopular stances. Understanding how they perceive it will allow you some insight into how they'll respond. I understand and percieve in the radical muslim enviroment, Americans are infidels... no amount of money, treating prisoners nice, etc will change that. Their culture keeps feuds and grudges for generations upon generations. They will not stop until total defeat. We don't torture, because We. Are. Better. Than They Are. We use to be able to say it. Now we're just hypocrites. America is a hypocritical, double standard nation. I can still say proudly though that we ARE better than they are.

How much longer that will last... who knows.

[ChunkyMonkey]

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!

[jake]

I understand and percieve in the radical muslim enviroment, Americans are infidels... no amount of money, treating prisoners nice, etc will change that. Their culture keeps feuds and grudges for generations upon generations. They will not stop until total defeat.

It's not about them though, is it? As you say, their attitudes will never change, no matter what we do. So we fight them hard, we prosecute them on the battlefield, we incarcerate them until they're no longer a threat.

It's about the people with no particular axe to grind who just want to get on with their lives. I'm personally of the opinion that if we go around torturing, executing and behaving in exactly the way that the radicals say we behave, we're not going to do much to convince moderate Muslims that we have anything to offer them.

It took the British 200 years to realise that if you treat people like crap, eventually they'll reach their breaking point and now it seems like America is the only country more universally hated than Britain (which means if I ever go on holiday to Afghanistan I'm doubly screwed )

[ChunkyMonkey]

It's about the people with no particular axe to grind who just want to get on with their lives. I'm personally of the opinion that if we go around torturing, executing and behaving in exactly the way that the radicals say we behave, we're not going to do much to convince moderate Muslims that we have anything to offer them.

Sorry jake. Most moderate muslims are keeping their mouth shut because they know we are doing them huge favors.

[BigBear]

It's about the people with no particular axe to grind who just want to get on with their lives. I'm personally of the opinion that if we go around torturing, executing and behaving in exactly the way that the radicals say we behave, we're not going to do much to convince moderate Muslims that we have anything to offer them.

Jake Sir, I agree with you. There is a difference in what we say/do and what others say/do about us. Not to get all religious and crap but there is a time for war and a time for peace. God has His wrath and His mercy. Battlefield combatants ought to be sent to meet their Maker and see our wrath. Those other peoples should see the mercy... We build houses for them after bombings, we try to support their infrastructure, we pour billions of dollars into the local economy, etc. And yes, we make mistakes. I don't know...

If they are not changed by seeing a hardend "infidel" soldier kill a suicide bomber (who was about to take several locals with them), fall down and cry, then get up and APOLOGIZE to the locals for the killing... then to turn around and start helping with the rebuilding of a temporary shelter for the locals, etc.... I don't know what to do. If the moderate muslims stay off the battlefields, they'll be ok. Unfortunately, it's the extremists that live in their midsts that mess things up. There is no surefire way to sort them out. Pysch speaking, they will cover for their own regardless of beliefs before trusting an outsider.

The old saying is still true. You have to talk the talk and walk the walk.

Peace.

[Hoosier]

4) Are we better than them? When it comes down to your family or your morals, what would you choose? Is one choice wrong ?(Be careful, if you haven't been in this situitation then think about it for a while. It is easy to answer when not in that position, even easier to answer when you are there.)

There is a difference between defending yourself, and being OK with extra-judicially killing someone because you are better than they are. Obviously, you defend yourself. You do not kill someone who is not a threat to you, even if they would kill you if they could. You prevent them from becoming a threat to you, but that doesn't involve murdering them.

5) What would be a suitable alternative? Letting them go, bribes, immunity? Could that information be trusted more than info rec'd by torture?

There are obviously better options than those you listed. Look at the work we did interrogating prisoners in WW2. Even when we broke the Geneva convention (P.O. Box 1142, for example) we didn't resort to torture, and we did get results. Real, verifiable results. Beyond that, you see if a case can be made to convict them of crimes, or failing that you hold them as a prisoner of war until the war is over and they're judged to be no longer a risk.