Quote Originally Posted by SA Friday View Post
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.
the big issue here for me is the reasoning behind the tactics. its not like we are doing waterboarding to every person we capture. its not like we are putting a hot iron on their face, cutting off fingers, etc. its not like its happening all the time. while i agree you need to be careful in this matter because of the problems it can cause in peace time, i think we have to try to remember we want to get to peace first before we worry about that. we aren't waterboarding for sport (not knowingly by the brass anyway) we are trying to get vital info to save american lives and bring the real criminals to justice sooner rather than later. you can't assume we can ever rid the world of terrorists. its not possible. too many people are fed junk at a young age, are victims of unfortunate circumstances and will inevitably take it out on us. certainly you don't want to fuel the fire, but i don't think we are risking that here. these terrorists aren't like fighting the french, or british or something. waterboarding probably makes them laugh. they do far worse things. waterboarding won't cause them to "up the ante" because it comes nowhere close to what they do. i am 100% against waterboarding every tom, dick and harry we come across, but in situations where we think they have very important information? absolutely. all it is is a fear tactic. we aren't permanently harming them. we aren't killing them. its the fear that drives the give up of information. if these were uniformed, organized afghani soldiers then i 100% agree it should not be allowed. but with terrorists? i think its a gray area we should exploit when absolutely needed