Bush vetoes anti torture bill

[Andy]

I suppose you do have a point. Moral absolutism is a religious concept, not one that the government is to be expected to adhere to, much like the value of upholding the agreements that have been made with others. If we're to have separation of church and state, then by extension, we can't expect the government to abide by any sort of moral absolutism. If torture in one instance actually produced some useful information, and if we'ere fighting people who don't share our abhorrence of the practice, then it must be OK for the government to torture prisoners.

However, despite the one instance of useful information you cite, it seems to me that overall the practice is detrimental to the goal of bringing peace and democracy to the Middle East.

Or, is that really the goal of the war against Iraq?

Well honestly, I support a representative republic like our own. Pure democracy is just the tyranny of 51% of the people on the other 49%. Splitting hairs sorry.

I see that we are bringing about positive freedom and change in Iraq. I was lucky enough to get to hang out with a half dozen servicemen from Iraq recently, and their report was overwhelmingly positive. Cite some example of how our prior actions have hindered this? Because I can show many that indicate it hasn't.

Look at the number of districts in Iraq that have already been turned over to self rule! We are succeeding, and this issue, despite the doom and chicken-little 'sky is falling' mantra repeated about how this issue will embolden our enemies and ruin our chances winning... it simply is not happening. Like I said before, people who support an action, are not going to at the same time condemn it, and claim we're the devil for doing what they themselves do constantly.

Further, it wasn't one instance... it was three... three important instances. All three of the waterboarded Al Qaeda members revealed high value, accurate, life saving, terrorist stopping information.

Now like I said before, and I'll say again here, there is no point to 'torture' for 'tortures sake'. Of course, no one is going to go for the idea of just randomly taking people and beating them. No one is saying let's make the inmates draw straws and then beat the lucky one till he's black and blue for nothing.

You are trying to make a argument about a premise no one is expounding. If you want to simply tackle the idea of harming war captives randomly through beatings and so on, with no purpose, reason, or cause... Ok. Here's my answer: I don't support that. Good deal, discussion over, nice chatting with you.

On the other hand, if you want to discuss the use of waterboarding in the specific situation, where a known terrorist, is openly refusing to talk, and give information we know he has, that could save lives...

...then I'm not as certain about my answer, and you have yet to give a reason either way.

 

[PLC1]

Well honestly, I support a representative republic like our own. Pure democracy is just the tyranny of 51% of the people on the other 49%. Splitting hairs sorry.

I see that we are bringing about positive freedom and change in Iraq. I was lucky enough to get to hang out with a half dozen servicemen from Iraq recently, and their report was overwhelmingly positive. Cite some example of how our prior actions have hindered this? Because I can show many that indicate it hasn't.

Look at the number of districts in Iraq that have already been turned over to self rule! We are succeeding, and this issue, despite the doom and chicken-little 'sky is falling' mantra repeated about how this issue will embolden our enemies and ruin our chances winning... it simply is not happening. Like I said before, people who support an action, are not going to at the same time condemn it, and claim we're the devil for doing what they themselves do constantly.

Further, it wasn't one instance... it was three... three important instances. All three of the waterboarded Al Qaeda members revealed high value, accurate, life saving, terrorist stopping information.

Now like I said before, and I'll say again here, there is no point to 'torture' for 'tortures sake'. Of course, no one is going to go for the idea of just randomly taking people and beating them. No one is saying let's make the inmates draw straws and then beat the lucky one till he's black and blue for nothing.

You are trying to make a argument about a premise no one is expounding. If you want to simply tackle the idea of harming war captives randomly through beatings and so on, with no purpose, reason, or cause... Ok. Here's my answer: I don't support that. Good deal, discussion over, nice chatting with you.

On the other hand, if you want to discuss the use of waterboarding in the specific situation, where a known terrorist, is openly refusing to talk, and give information we know he has, that could save lives...

...then I'm not as certain about my answer, and you have yet to give a reason either way.

I've already posted links showing that there were far more than three instances, and that it involved a lot more than waterboarding. Since no one is expounding the idea that such action is acceptable, then we're in agreement. It is most certainly unacceptable. Keeping people locked up for years without charges is unacceptable. Becoming what we say we are fighting in the middle East is not acceptable to any thinking person. It looks as if we are in agreement about that.

The action of having waterboarded three known terrorists and gotten information from them is a gray area which could be supported on a couple of premises: Not everyone agrees that waterboarding is really torture, and the ends may justify the means.

 

[sun tzu]

If you want to discuss the use of waterboarding in the specific situation, where a known terrorist, is openly refusing to talk, and give information we know he has, that could save lives...

...then I'm not as certain about my answer, and you have yet to give a reason either way.

I am sorry, but that is just horrible. What is America but her ideals? America is the leader of the free world and we set the standard by example. When Al Qaeda tortures their captives, dismembering and killing Americans, we show anger and a killing rage. But can we really hold it against Al Qaeda if we do something only slightly less barbaric?
I don't know the exact words, but Ben Franklin once said that those who choose safety over freedom do not deserve either. The same applies to our other ideals. America was the country of the common man. Are we going to let Al Qaeda change us in so fundemental a way?

 

[Andy]

I am sorry, but that is just horrible. What is America but her ideals? America is the leader of the free world and we set the standard by example. When Al Qaeda tortures their captives, dismembering and killing Americans, we show anger and a killing rage. But can we really hold it against Al Qaeda if we do something only slightly less barbaric?
I don't know the exact words, but Ben Franklin once said that those who choose safety over freedom do not deserve either. The same applies to our other ideals. America was the country of the common man. Are we going to let Al Qaeda change us in so fundemental a way?

First, the quote does not even remotely apply to discussion. I, am not giving up any freedoms, to gain security. This may shock you, but freedom and liberty are not promised to those that break laws. Further, freedom isn't promised to non-Americans. The constitution was written to protect citizens of the United States, not middle east terrorists.

Second, it is the fundamental duty our government to protect the citizens. Convincing terrorists to talk and give information that will save the lives of US citizens, is the Constitutional duty of the US government.

Third, I see nothing barbaric about using an approved coercion method to save human lives. What seems barbaric, is doing nothing and watching another terrorist attack kill and maim innocent civilians.

 

[PLC1]

This is just one of many articles documenting abuse of prisoners of war. The United States, under the leadership of George Bush, has lost its compass and can no longer claim the high ground in the struggle against human righs abuses.

05-26) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Amnesty International said Wednesday that the United States' treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib had emboldened abusive regimes and weakened human rights around the world.

The group's annual report, "The State of the World's Human Rights,'' provides a harshly worded critique of U.S. conduct toward its prisoners alongside accounts of oppression in China and genocide in Sudan, saying the U. S. behavior "grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity.''

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/26/MNGVOCUTON1.DTL
Leader of the free world, indeed.

 

[sun tzu]

Re: Bush vetoes anti torture bill

First, the quote does not even remotely apply to discussion. I, am not giving up any freedoms, to gain security. This may shock you, but freedom and liberty are not promised to those that break laws. Further, freedom isn't promised to non-Americans. The constitution was written to protect citizens of the United States, not middle east terrorists.

Second, it is the fundamental duty our government to protect the citizens. Convincing terrorists to talk and give information that will save the lives of US citizens, is the Constitutional duty of the US government.

Third, I see nothing barbaric about using an approved coercion method to save human lives. What seems barbaric, is doing nothing and watching another terrorist attack kill and maim innocent civilians.

Fair point, the Ben Franklin quote was a bad argument. However, America is not protecting us from an attack by torturing people who have friends who aren't in prison; it just makes them more mad. Plus There is no guarantee the tortured people in question are guilty. My friend's dad is a lawyer representing some of the prisoners at Gitmo. One man who was "interrogated" was a broke militiamen (yes, the militias are bad stuff, but he left it on his own free will) who had been referred by a friend to cheuffer a very wealthy middle-eastern business man (who turned out to be Osama Bin Laden -- the cheuffer didn't know that, because he was payed by a third party source) was involved in some shady business. True, he shouldn't have excepted the job, but being a cheuffer for crooks has never been enough to be tortured until now. He actually quit when he began to wise up to what was going on, but was captured when we found a list of Bin Laden's old employees all well and good, except that when he didn't tell them where Bin Laden was at the moment (he didn't know; quit months before), they tortured him until he agreed with them that Bin Laden was definetely on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in order to stop the pain. The man has a wife and child in Afghanistan, where women are not allowed to work and the boy is only 8 or 9.

How can America possibly be responsiblefor such a horror story? The man made one mistake, and now he faces life at Gitmo, the shortest kind of hell.

 

[Andy]

Re: Bush vetoes anti torture bill

Fair point, the Ben Franklin quote was a bad argument. However, America is not protecting us from an attack by torturing people who have friends who aren't in prison; it just makes them more mad. Plus There is no guarantee the tortured people in question are guilty. My friend's dad is a lawyer representing some of the prisoners at Gitmo. One man who was "interrogated" was a broke militiamen (yes, the militias are bad stuff, but he left it on his own free will) who had been referred by a friend to cheuffer a very wealthy middle-eastern business man (who turned out to be Osama Bin Laden -- the cheuffer didn't know that, because he was payed by a third party source) was involved in some shady business. True, he shouldn't have excepted the job, but being a cheuffer for crooks has never been enough to be tortured until now. He actually quit when he began to wise up to what was going on, but was captured when we found a list of Bin Laden's old employees all well and good, except that when he didn't tell them where Bin Laden was at the moment (he didn't know; quit months before), they tortured him until he agreed with them that Bin Laden was definetely on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in order to stop the pain. The man has a wife and child in Afghanistan, where women are not allowed to work and the boy is only 8 or 9.

How can America possibly be responsiblefor such a horror story? The man made one mistake, and now he faces life at Gitmo, the shortest kind of hell.

"There is no guarantee the tortured people in question are guilty."
Yes there is. The three people we waterboarded were most obviously guilty. One was the guy who killed the reporter Daniel Pearl. It was on video, and obviously him. He also was widely known to have participated in numerous terrorist events. Another already had the Death Penalty in Jordan of all places, and had been in the Al Queda network for 30 some years, and had 37 some odd aliases in a half dozen countries and boasted planning 30 different terrorist attacks, and was in charge of recruitment for AQ in Afghanistan. The way one was captured, was a phone tap in which they recorded him actually planning out another terrorist attack over the phone.

Now perhaps that's not good enough, but what would you suggest? Let terrorist keep attacking? Just hope all the plans fail for no reason? What do you suggest we do to terrorist we know have information, but refuse to talk? Offer a plea bargin? Abu Zubaida told his captors that if he was released, he would trying to kill every Jew and American he could find. He said this openly. What exactly do you plan to do with him? Just let it go and watch people die?

Pretty easy for some to complain when you do not have the responsibility of the protection of American civilians.