• theduke said on Jun 18, 2008....

  
  the UN convention against torture is non-negotiable. It states that it is not allowed.

   

• anonymous said on Jun 18, 2008....

  No, it is a crime against humanity. using inhumane tactics to gain information is wrong.

• anonymous said on Jun 18, 2008....

  yes but not without careful consideration, public safety is most important and you cannot rule anything out when faced with all these Muslim terrorists

• Expendable said on Jun 18, 2008....

  Some people will say anything under torture. Some even lie, just to get it to stop.

• crybabylu said on Jun 18, 2008....

  I agree, expendable, there is no proof whatsoever that information is reliable.

• anonymous said on Jun 18, 2008....

  The answer in international law is categorical: no. As laid down in treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the ban on torture or any cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is absolute, even in times of war. Along with genocide, torture is the only crime that every state must punish, no matter who commits it or where. Defenders of this blanket prohibition offer arguments that range from the moral (torture degrades and corrupts the society that allows it) to the practical (people will say anything under torture so the information they provide is unreliable anyway).

• curmudgeon said on Jun 18, 2008....

  If we were "justified" in bombing innocent people, in shooting people, setting flamethrowers on people, chopping them to bits with machine guns, sinking ships, blowing up armored vehicles, even nuking women and children during WWII, how is it we morally draw the line on "torture?"

  And yes, there is credible evidence that waterboarding - decried as torture by Bush critics - did yield actionable information.

  If we can get our information some other way, I'm all for it. However, if our professional interrogators - people trained specifically for this purpose who work in this field full time - feel that they cannot get information any other way, we have to do what we have to do.

  We're not battling Geneva convention signatories here. International law didn't protect Daniel Pearl.

• bloc said on Jun 18, 2008....

  "And yes, there is credible evidence that waterboarding"
  
  
  Can you link to it?
  
  
  The difference between bombing and torturing is that torture is done to captives who are already subdued. It's the same reason that police are allowed to use forced to subdue someone, but not after they are subdued. 
  
  
  Second, what happens when we start torturing innocent people by accident? Curm, why doesn't your logic apply to american criminals as well? Why not torture a drug dealer to find out who his supplier yet? Actually, that's not a fair comparison since the drug dealer is probably already found guilty. Why don't we torture suspects to find out if they are really drug dealers?
  
  
  The question we have to ask ourselves is if we believe in morality or not. If America stands for ideals or not. We can't claim that america is spreading good and democracy with while simultaneous claiming that we need to torture. It's an oxymoron.
  
  
  Also, we justified invading Iraq by claiming that saddam tortured people. That argument doesn't sound so convincing if we are now claiming that torture in and of itself is not wrong.
  
  

• bloc said on Jun 18, 2008....

  @curm
  our professional interrogators, i.e. the military, are not the ones who claimed we needed to torture.
  
  
  " Haynes [Bush Admin] had showed strong interest in potentially abusive questioning methods as early as July 2002. Later, ignoring the strong objections of the uniformed military, Haynes sent a memo toDonald Rumsfeld recommending the approval of stress positions, nudity, dogs and light deprivation."source

• bloc said on Jun 18, 2008....

  btw, Haynes testified about torture today in front of the senate. Here is the summation of his testimony.
  
  
  ""I don't recall seeing this memorandum before and I'm not even sure this is one I've seen before. . . . I don't recall seeing this memorandum and I don't recall specific objections of this nature. . . . Well, I don't recall seeing this document, either. . . . I don't recall specific concerns. . . . I don't recall these and I don't recall seeing these memoranda. . . . I can't even read this document, but I don't remember seeing it. . . . I don't recall that specifically. . . . I don't remember doing that. . . . I don't recall seeing these things."

  In two hours of testimony, Haynes managed to get off no fewer than 23 don't recalls, 22 don't remembers, 16 don't knows, and various other protestations of memory loss."

  Those aren't very strong justifications are they curm?

• anonymous said on Jun 19, 2008....

  "Along with genocide, torture is the only crime that every state must punish, no matter who commits it or where or when, even during times of war. As laid down in treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the ban on torture or any cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is absolute. Even the United State’s very own constitutional speaks vaguely against the method of torture in the 8th Amendment prohibiting the use of “cruel and unusual punishment.”

• stopmediabias said on Jun 19, 2008....

  Whenever there is a torture debate it is always the same bunch of crap that we all ready know.  The title of the this post is "Does the safety of a nation justify torture?"  So lets answer that question with this one.  All the libs have staked everything falsely on the lie the Bush Administration tortures people, so lets switch sides.  We capture a known bin Laden associate that we know has a boatload of information that will save American lives.  He is captured in the dead of night so we only have a very small window of time.  Do we waterboard him? Or do we try all other forms of negotiation, etc. to save Americans.  Now waterboarding is torture according to libs so on one side "torture" on the other side save Americans.  What do we do?

• bloc said on Jun 19, 2008....

  the thoroughly discredited ticking time-bomb. How about we deal with the reality of the situation. the people we've tortured weren't in the situation you describe.
  
  
  btw, is waterboarding torture when done to an american? Is it ok for foreign countries to capture and waterboard americans?

• anonymous said on Jun 19, 2008....

  let's get around the legalities of it. Let's say torture is not illegal. I still think it is inhumane and immoral.

• stopmediabias said on Jun 19, 2008....

  This is not a ticking time-bomb, this is a reasonable scenerio.  Khalid Sheik Mohammed was captured in the middle of the night and is/was a high ranking member of Al Qaeda.  We waterboarded this guy, so according to you guys he was tortured.  If you guys were in power what would you have done? 
   

• bloc said on Jun 19, 2008....

  if waterboarding isn't torture is it ok for foreign countries to do it to americans?

• D6fer said on Jun 19, 2008....

  Here is a link for you bloc.
  

  
  

  On whether coercive interrogations produce useful information:

  O'REILLY: So in all 14 cases, coerced interrogation methods, being debated in the Senate right now, were used. And in all 14 cases, according to your report, they gave it up.
  
  Now the opposition, you just heard it. Human Rights Watch, ACLU, they say it's garbage. They told them what they want to hear. It wasn't truthful. Is that true?
  
  ROSS: That has happened in some cases where the material that's been given has not been accurate, has been essentially to stop the torture.
  
  In the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the information was very valuable, particularly names and addresses of people who were involved with al Qaeda in this country and in Europe.
  
  And in one particular plot, which would involve an airline attack on the tallest building in Los Angeles, known as the Library Tower.
  
  O'REILLY: Well, in fact, you say in your report that more than a dozen plots, a dozen al Qaeda plots to kill people were stopped because of the information they got from coerced interrogation?
  
  ROSS: That's what we were told by sources.
  
  O'REILLY: Do you believe that?
  
  ROSS: I do believe that.
  

  And again on the information that's produced:

  O'REILLY: All right, but you're up there. When you hear human rights people come on this program and say it doesn't work, it never works, this is — what do you say?
  
  ROSS: I think it's open debate, because sometimes there is information that doesn't hold up. But it's clear in several cases, with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with people that absolutely beyond a doubt are terrorists, terrorist masterminds, it does seem to have an effect. And that's just the bottom line.
  
  Source
  

• bloc said on Jun 20, 2008....

  I didn't think you believed things from ABC news? Do you consider them a trusted source now? I want to make sure because Mr. Ross has made some other interesting statements as well.

• Expendable said on Jun 20, 2008....

  Have you ever been interrogated?
   
  You have to break the other person down. Even with drugs it takes time.
   
  Torture can break someone faster but it's destructive.

• D6fer said on Jun 20, 2008....

  cant take it for what it is bloc? you asked for a link to some evidence that waterboarding works, and there it is....it doesnt matter who the players are in the interview, only that the content is credible.....and it was gotten from the CIA.

• bloc said on Jun 20, 2008....

  so you believe that the evidence is credible? Because you like what it says, or do you trust the source? I want to make sure so that when I point to other things by this same reporter you don't claim that you don't trust it and refuse to consider it.
  
  
  So again I ask, do you trust this report?

• D6fer said on Jun 20, 2008....

  I read the interview bloc...and i am well aware of the "buts" I am not going to say that whatever Ross says is right on....i simply pointed out that there was evidence of the effectiveness of waterboarding.
  
  I am continually amazed how you care so much about what happens to world trash like khalid sheik mohammed and say nothing about the bullshit our own troops had to go through in court over the haditha killings (which was thrown out) 35 NCIS agents, millions of dollars.
  
  CAMP PENDLETON – A military judge dismissed charges Tuesday against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis.

  Col. Steven Folsom dismissed charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after finding that a four-star general overseeing the case was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha.
  

  source
  

  You were in the military.....and you didnt even comment....unbelievable.
  

  
  

• stopmediabias said on Jun 21, 2008....

  Bloc-You dodged the question, the question wasn't whether waterboarding is torture, we've been through that.  The question is what would you guys have done with a Kalid Shit Mohammed.

  You guys seem to stand on your high moral ground and point fingers but have no solution to the problem.  Waterboarding is now illegal so what is Obama going to do if he captures a high valued target with limited time to stop an attack?

  D6 makes a great point, how many post have you done on the Haditha incident since it has now come out that these men were innocent?

• bloc said on Jun 21, 2008....

  @smb
  what's funny is that you guys only believe that a courts ruling is to be respected if it agrees with your preexisting opinion. 
  
  
  @d6
  I actually read the interview too. Here's what it said
  "O'REILLY: Has it saved American lives?
  
  ROSS: That's what the administration would say."
  
  
  So the evidence here is that the Bush admin said it saved lives? I'm skeptical of the claims of the person committing the crime. However, whether it has saved lives does not lead to the conclusion you believe it does. When talking about this issue there are two aspects, morality and effectiveness.
  
  
  1. Morality.
  The fact that a technique gets useful information sometimes does not justify it. Would it be ok to rape people if it saved lives?
  
  
  2. effectiveness
  the trick used by torture proponents is to keep the focus so narrow that it hides the reality of the situation. What if torture only got useful information in 1 out of every 100 uses and 55 of the cases resulted in false information said to make the torture stop? Is that considered effective? Should we use it in such a case? 
  
  
  What if 10 of the 100 people tortured turned out to be innocent? Is it still ok to use torture? 
  
  
  What if the torture results in useful info, but it also creates more terrorists around the world due to backlash and it leads many of our allies to refuse to turn people over to us or give us future information? Is it still effective?
  
  
  The scary part is that this is being done in secret so we have no way of knowing the answers to some of these questions. We do know that we've mistakenly tortured some innocent people. We also know that there has been backlash to this practice. And, we also know that it is illegal and that Presidents need to follow the laws too or they are meaningless. 

• D6fer said on Jun 21, 2008....

  so you do care more about the rights of khalid sheik mohammed than those of our own soldiers.....good to know where you stand.
  
  

• D6fer said on Jun 21, 2008....

  O'REILLY: Well, in fact, you say in your report that more than a dozen plots, a dozen al Qaeda plots to kill people were stopped because of the information they got from coerced interrogation?
  
  ROSS: That's what we were told by sources.
  
  O'REILLY: Do you believe that?
  
  ROSS: I do believe that.

• bloc said on Jun 21, 2008....

  he believes it, but has no evidence backing it up. You said that there was evidence, but a belief is not evidence. 
  
  
  What I care about is the rights of people in general. History is rife with examples of governments abusing power and hiding in shrouds of secrecy. Our founding fathers believed that power corrupts and they went out of their way to put checks on the power of any one person or small group, and to provide transparency so that the government couldn't hide behind a shroud of secrecy. I think that is a wise idea, and the Bush Admin is trying to reverse this american tradition. 
  
  
  Now back to the issue at hand. There is no evidence that torture has saved lives and there has been no transparency on this extreme use of power. I can't take the word of people that break the law when they say "trust us, our crimes were necessary". However, there are even better reasons to not trust the Bush admin, they have a record of exaggerating the truth and outright deceit. Here are a few examples.
  
  
  1. That saddam was an immediate threat to this country.
  
  
  2. they claimed that Padilla, an american citizen, was planning to use a dirty bomb. They used this claim to hold him, again an american citizen, without charges for years! When the finally charged him with something, right before the supreme court was going to rule on their radical power grab, they did NOT charge him with anything relating to a dirty bomb. In fact, they never presented any evidence at all regarding their very serious charges!
  
  
  3. Now that the supreme court has ruled that suspects in gitmo can challenge their detention in an open court the administration is claiming that they need to redo the "facts" they presented to the "secret" courts. This sounds like padilla all over again. They make very serious charges when they do not have to prove them, and when it comes time to prove something, they change their story.
  
  
  4. Remember those claims that people released from gitmo have returned to the "battlefield" and killed americans. We've heard it from the Bush administration and many other neo cons. Turns out there is no evidence of it at all!
  
  
  So yeah, I'm not going to take the word of the Bush admin that their crimes had a good effect.

• D6fer said on Jun 22, 2008....

  1. So when would have he been a threat in your opinion? After he got nukes? then used them? Do you think he would if he had them? I do!
  2. Padilla got his day in court and lost....why do you keep beating that dead horse?
  3. Why do your friends the terrorists have the right to make a case for themselves, but the prosecution doesnt have the right to shore up there own?
  4. Just how do you get that kind of evidence? Do you stop the enemy and say "excuse me, could I see some I.D. ?"
  I wasnt aware that the CIA was hand picked by GWB when he was elected....I figured many of them had been there for awhile....it was their word...not GWB's

• stopmediabias said on Jun 22, 2008....

  bloc-You logic is a bit fuzzy.  You have never proved the United States government tortures anyone unless you use your watered down definition of torture.  You're trying to make the case that torture doesn't work in getting decent information and you have backed yourself into a corner.  Kalid Sheik Mohammed told us a lot of valuable things after we waterboarded him.  That isn't a lie it is a well published statement of fact.  You guys have hurt yourselves by watering down what actual torture is.
   
  After you accuse your government falsely of torture without proof you have now made it a part of your vocabulary as if is scripture and constantly preach to us about how bad torture is (which we agree.)  This Global warming all over again.
   
  1. Morality.

  The fact that a technique gets useful information sometimes does not justify it. Would it be ok to rape people if it saved lives?
  You guys always walk this moral tightrope and use these beyond exteme examples.  I could ask the same question just in a different perspective throwing in: what if the useful information is 100,000 people dead, or a school, would it be ok?  The answer to both questions is every situation is different and there is a strong chance it will never be that cut and dried.
   
  #1-There is no circumstance or any amount of information, intelligence, or evidence that would make someone like you think another country is a threat enough to go to war.  Your writings and comments glaringly show this.
   
  #2-Where is Padilla presently?  Didn't he get convicted?
   
  #3-Once again, we see a President fighting an enemy that wants to kill us.  You see some grand conspiracy for more imperial power by a rogue government.  If our government was as mean and devious as you believe do you think we would have even heard of Padilla?
   
  #4-There are a half a dozen of these cockroaches who have been set free and gone right back the jiad.  Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi blew himself up in Iraq after being released from Gitmo.  Look at Abdullah Mehsud, these are two and there are more.  There is hope bloc, you just have to open your eyes.

• bloc said on Jun 22, 2008....

  "You have never proved the United States government tortures anyone unless you use your watered down definition of torture.  "
  
  
  Induced hypothermia is torture. Stress positions are torture. Waterboarding is and has always been torture. 
  
  
  There is a really easy why to figure this stuff out. Would you consider it torture if it was done to a captured american?
  
  
  Regarding padilla, I love how you guys dodged my point. Why did the Bush admin make extreme charges against him (to blow up a dirty bomb) and never show any proof of it? The Bush admin asserted the power to hold him, and any other american citizen, forever without charges. Holding an american 3 years without charging them with a crime is clearly unconstitutional. 
  
  
  "Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi blew himself up in Iraq after being released from Gitmo"
  
  
  There is no evidence that this is true.
  
  
  For anyone interested, here is a good discussion on torture by a Marine. 
  
  

  "I never heard of or saw any Americans torturing anyone (except on the news).  I heard of and saw Iraqis torturing on several occasions.  And generally, the "intel" they got out of those sessions proved to be worthless. 

  It brought to mind the training I had received on POW handling a decade before as a 2ndLt in Quantico . We were told not to torture because (1) it was wrong and (2) it didn't work.  I remember our instructors noting that even the Soviets didn't torture for information. because it didn't yield reliable information.
  
  
  Torture doesn't work.  In fact, in a counterinsurgency it works against you because it turns the locals against you.  That is why the Marines took that guy back to his house.  Because they knew we were trying to win that neighborhood's trust, and torturing one of their own was not the way to do it, even if he was working with the Muj."

• stopmediabias said on Jun 23, 2008....

  bloc-You've shown very clearly you have read nothing on this subject but exactly what you want to read. 

  You continuously read the cowardly lefts version of Padilla case instead of actually reading the truth.   

  What makes you deranged is you sit under a President whose number one priority is protect you and your family (which he has) and did when he took Padilla off the street and all you can do is snivel about things that are blatent misrepresentations.

  And for the 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000th time.  WE KNOW TORTURE IS WRONG, WE KNOW TORTURE DOESN'T WORK, WE KNOW TORTURE DOESN'T YEILD REALIABLE INFORMATION.  Are we clear bloc, we get it, understand, you've told us.  If you believe stress positions is torture and we don't that is a difference of opinion and doesn't change the facts about real actual torture.

  Did I just make up the name Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi.  Do some actual research, there are no innocent people in Gitmo.

• bloc said on Jun 23, 2008....

  "there are no innocent people in Gitmo."
  
  
  This is the stupidest thing I've read in a long time. 
  
  
  Whenever I bring up facts you resort to name calling. Bush asserted the power to deny due process to any american and you defend it. I believe that we should keep the Constitution and you want to throw it away in the shadow of fear.

• stopmediabias said on Jun 24, 2008....

  http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/print?id=2126364

  The following is an excerpt from a Nightline interview with Admiral Harry Harris in 2006.

  HARRIS: I believe truly that I am holding no innocent men in Guantanamo.

  MORAN: How do you know that?

  HARRIS: They have gone through a rigorous process to get to where they are today. Not only were they processed on the battlefields in the Middle East by Central Command before they got here.

  But after they got here we went through a very rigorous process called the CSRT, the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, which is a Geneva Article 5-like procedure. And that process looked at every detainee -- it was a one-time only process -- and it look at every detainee to determine whether that detainee was an enemy combatant or no longer an enemy combatant.

  So if you take those that were determined to be no longer enemy combatants and you sit them aside, then you have the vast majority of the remaining detainees who were judged to be enemy combatants -- after a pretty lengthy evaluation process.

  After that was over -- and the CSRT was a one-time deal -- we do since then annual administrative review boards. This is a process that has no precedent in neither Geneva, international law or U.S. domestic law.

  And ARB, the ministry review board process, is all about looking at each detainee every year to see if he -- if we can afford the risk of returning that detainee to another country for continued detention or just outright release them, or if we need to keep them here. And that's another very rigorous process.

  And we've gone through one complete ARB, and now we're in the ARB-2 -- the second ARB, this year.

  So every detainee every year gets looked at by an ARB, and before that every detainee was looked at by the combatant status review tribunal.

  So I think at the end of all that, we know who we have here, and we have some very serious enemy combatants here.

  Let me qualify that by also -- not qualify, but let me add to that by saying that we have released almost 300 combatants since Guantanamo was first opened. So I believe we're serious in our commitment not to hold detainees here any longer than necessary.

  And out of that 300, you know, we've assumed the risk that they can either be released or transferred to other countries for either continued detention processing or release.

  MORAN: So no man who ever came to Guantanamo Bay came there by mistake was innocent?

  HARRIS: I believe that to be true.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harris_%28admiral%29

  Rear Admiral Harry Harris, you can read his credentials on Wikipedia.  Now on one side we have a bunch of scummy lawyers telling lies told to them by these subhumans and on the other we have a decorated veteran of Navy, who could possibly be a more reliable source?

• bloc said on Jun 24, 2008....

  we have already release people from gitmo because they didn't believe they were terrorists. Are you saying we released a bunch of terrorists?
  
  
  "The government says many of the roughly 490 men currently detained at Guantanamo Bay are dangerous terrorists. But ABC News has exclusive details about five men imprisoned at Guantanamo who even the Pentagon admits don't pose a national security threat. " source
  
  
  btw, these 5 are still in gitmo.

• bloc said on Jun 24, 2008....

  @smb
  
  
  you are so transparently deceitful. Did you even read the link in your last comment?
  
  
  MICHAEL ROWLAND:

  You say you believe you have the right people here. So, you believe there are no innocent detainees?

  HARRY HARRIS:

  I believe there are no innocent detainees here. But again, I use the term "innocent" loosely. It's not a question of innocence, it's a question of enemy combatant status.

  
  Mr. Harris believes that calling someone an enemy combatant is all that is necessary to hold them without due process. The processes he talks about have been ruled to be insufficient twice by the courts. These processes are ones in which the evidence against people were kept secret and the detanees were not allowed to know the evidence against them. This is transparently flawed. Also, as I've pointed out before, many of the people in gitmo were not picked up on a battlefield at all!

• curmudgeon said on Jun 25, 2008....

  Do we waterboard everyone as a matter of policy? Or is this technique used only in certain circumstances where it's thought that it will yield the information needed?
   
  The dishonesty in bloc's line of questioning is that because I support using this specific technique (waterboarding) in very specific circumstances (only those in which useful information has the greatest chance of being obtained), I must defend the technique in vastly different circumstances and apply it to everyone as a matter of policy. 
   
  As to whether it's moral or immoral, caging people up for the rest of their lives is pretty immoral, but we don't question it when the people we're caging pose a grave threat to society. To simply set such people loose on society would be a greater wrong. So too would be to ignore an interrogation technique when American lives are at stake.
   
  I have said over and over I'm interested in what works. In the past, Bloc pointed to an Army field manual that advocated developing trust between interrogator and subject. If our intelligence professionals believe this it what's most effective, hey I'm all for it. I'm sure that they would rather do what works than what doesn't work.
  But in certain very specific circumstances, waterboarding may be called for.
   
  I don't buy that they're just going to be bullied into waterboarding for no reason out of the wanton cruelty of the Bush Administration. These people have a job to do, and quite frankly it's the Administration's job to take the political hits, which they have been doing for seven years.

• bloc said on Jun 25, 2008....

  "The dishonesty in bloc's line of questioning is that because I support using this specific technique (waterboarding) in very specific circumstances (only those in which useful information has the greatest chance of being obtained), I must defend the technique in vastly different circumstances and apply it to everyone as a matter of policy. "
  
  
  You misunderstand my questioning. I'm interested in what our government is doing now, not in a hypothetical. They are using torture beyond the specific circumstances you describe and I'm pointing that out and asking for your reaction.
  
  
  "As to whether it's moral or immoral, caging people up for the rest of their lives is pretty immoral, but we don't question it when the people we're caging pose a grave threat to society. To simply set such people loose on society would be a greater wrong. So too would be to ignore an interrogation technique when American lives are at stake."
  
  
  These aren't analogous because the people we cage have been proven guilty in open court. I've shown you in the past innocent people that we have tortured and you stop responding at that point.
  
  
  "But in certain very specific circumstances, waterboarding may be called for."
  
  
  I can understand this view, but it's not what the Bush administration has done!
  
  
  Here's another question for you. If we go to war with a nation and they capture some americans that know of an imminent attack is it OK for them to use these harsh techniques on the Americans? Don't say, "well they'd do it anyway". I'm asking that if they did it would we then by your logic be unable to honestly call it wrong?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• curmudgeon said on Jun 26, 2008....

  War is wrong, period. Violence is wrong period. There is no such thing as "just war". It's not a question of what is right or wrong, because it's all wrong. But we're still left with choices. This is just where you're not getting it at all.
   
  Innocent people get convicted and imprisoned too. Shall we close up all our prisons? No, we do what we can to make sure that those we convict are really guilty. Why not the same for interrogations?
   
  Humans and human institutions are not perfect. Were we to to make our choices solely based on what is right and wrong we would do nothing. Everything we do has shades of both right and wrong.
   
  The folks who cut off Daniel Pearl's head probably believed that what they were doing is right. Many of the Japanese soldiers who tortured Allied soldiers certainly thought that what they were doing was right, or at least necessary. Ditto for the Nazis with the Final Solution.
   
  Whether or not I call these things wrong is purely subjective. Whether or not millions of people call this or that wrong is just as subjective.
   
  But what we have before us are choices. Both will have consequences that we can call right or wrong. I choose waterboarding under very specific circumstances.
   
  Criticizing the Bush Administration is your game, not mine. The question before us is not "Should Bush torture? or Does Bush Torture?" its "Does the Safety of a Nation Justify Torture?" That goes for whomever might be President.
   
  "Justify" implies that this is right. This is not the case. For me this is a necessary wrong. That's my subjective opinion.

• bloc said on Jun 26, 2008....

  I don't believe that war is wrong period. 
  
  
  "Innocent people get convicted and imprisoned too. Shall we close up all our prisons?"
  
  
  Imprisoning the wrong person isn't nearly as bad as torturing the wrong person. 
  
  
  You dodged my question. What Bush is doing doesn't fit with what you say is acceptable use of torture. I think it's telling that you don't want to address the facts of what is actually happening. 
  
  
  btw, I didn't know a conservative like you would believe in moral relativism. 

• curmudgeon said on Jun 26, 2008....

  bloc, to be honest I'm really not as interested in this topic as you, which is why I prefer to talk about torture in a general sense. However:

  From your Washington Post source:

  "Reed, a West Point graduate, was enraged. "You did a disservice to the soldiers of this nation," he said. "You empowered them to violate basic conditions which every soldier respects, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Geneva Convention. . . . You degraded the integrity of the United States military."

  I'm keying in on the phrase "you empowered them..." It is on the members of the United States military to obey the Uniform Code of Military Justice, is it not? I'm not a veteran, so I don't know, but aren't orders that violate the Code not to be followed? Aren't such orders supposed to be brought before some judicial arm of the military? Again, I'm not convinced that the Bush Administration could have had this policy implemented without buy-in from at least some folks in the military. Someone in charge in the military had to be convinced that this is what needed to be done.
   
  You and I are clearly free to question their judgment, but I think you're being a little naive in thinking that military interrogators were really wringing their hands over this. It seems to me that interrogators are prepared to do what is necessary, whatever the ethical or legal problems, or they'd be in another line of work. But in order to do what is deemed necessary, they need political cover. And this sounds like a purely cover your ass story in which this Haynes fellow is publicly wrung over the coals to make the folks in congress feel like they're doing something to satisfy their constituents. Haynes goes back to his job at Chevon, the politicians pose for pictures, update their websites touting their humanitarian record, and the whole charade goes on.
   
  Rough interrogation is politically indefensible, but that doesn't mean it's not going to happen, whoever the President may be. The only question is how to keep the stink from reaching the Oval Office.
   
  I don't know that I'd call myself a moral relativist. Clearly people have a sense of what is right and what is wrong, and largely they agree on that which is right and that which is wrong - murder, theft, adultery, etc. The question arises in what side of right and wrong people perceive themselves to be on. Clearly Hitler did not perceive himself to be on the wrong side. Neither did the Allies. And if the Nazis had won, the Allies would have been on the "wrong" side of history.
   
  That I acknowledge all our decisions to have aspects of right and wrong in them doesn't make me a relativist - it makes me a realist.

• stopmediabias said on Jun 26, 2008....

  Bloc-Admiral Harris made it clear that it is based on status.  I highlighted that article to point out that there is a process in holding these people.  You allude to the supposed evilness of the Bush Administration when it states in that article many of these people cannot go back to their home country and it is difficult to find a place for them.  We didn't start this, they did.
   
  My number one problem is you accuse your own people of torture with no reasonable proof.  I can't stand that monumentally naive question: "If we go to war with a nation and they capture some americans that know of an imminent attack is it OK for them to use these harsh techniques on the Americans?"
   
  The answer to that question in the real world is: We can only hope. 
   
  Look at our enemies in the past.  The Nazi's, Japanese, Vietnamese, did they agree or care about torture?  When Al Qaeda captures an American are they going to waterboard him? 

• bloc said on Jun 26, 2008....

  @curm
  "I'm keying in on the phrase "you empowered them..." It is on the members of the United States military to obey the Uniform Code of Military Justice, is it not? I'm not a veteran, so I don't know, but aren't orders that violate the Code not to be followed? Aren't such orders supposed to be brought before some judicial arm of the military? Again, I'm not convinced that the Bush Administration could have had this policy implemented without buy-in from at least some folks in the military. Someone in charge in the military had to be convinced that this is what needed to be done."
  
  
  Interesting perspective. Soldiers aren't legal scholars. The Bush admin declared that the geneva conventions didn't apply to "enemy combatants", that insurgents in Iraq (and of course gitmo) are enemy combatants, and that torture is limited to things that cause pain equivalent to major organ failure or death. This came from the legal arm of the Bush admin. 
  
  
  If you are a soldier you can get in serious trouble for failing to obey a lawful order. If you are ordered to torture and you've been told by the Bush legal arm that it's legal, you will put yourself at great risk if you disobey. 
  
  
  "That I acknowledge all our decisions to have aspects of right and wrong in them doesn't make me a relativist - it makes me a realist."
  
  
  I won't go down the philosophical tangent for fear of boring everyone :) But, this raises some interesting questions. Remember how we used Saddam's torture and other things to gin up support for the war? It seems a bit hypocritical to say that Saddam is an evil monster that needs to be hunt down and killed, then turn around and say "we need to torture to stay safe". 
  
  
  @smb
  get back to me when you stop dodging the question.

• bloc said on Jun 26, 2008....

  Here is one of the legal experts from the Bush admin. You tell me what a soldier is supposed to think if this is the person determining what is and isn't legal.
  
  
  
  
  Here he is testifying about his assertion that the President can torture.
  
  

• curmudgeon said on Jun 27, 2008....

  bloc - I will view these videos sometime soon. I'm out for the weekend. Suffice it to say that I respect your views and truly enjoy these exchanges. I'm learning quite a bit.

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