It is the same. It is causing actual physical pain and could cause internal medical problems or even death if overused or used on a person with a wide range of medical conditions.
It's like sometimes people die when they're tazed. Let go on long enough, on enough subjects, someone would eventually die.
It is an act to extract information whether it is available or not by inflicting real & physical pain & suffering while the person is made to feel as if they are dying.
No one died as a direct result of these techniques as far as I am aware.
You can agree with doing something wrong in an end justifies the mean way... but you cannot turn wrong into right.
I just do not have a problem with subjecting those that orchestrated 9/11 to this kind of thing.
Not only can it affect the treatment of our own captured now... it can have lasting ramifications in all future conflicts & in our attempts in the future to prosecute others who torture.
With what country has it effected the treatment of our captured soldiers? I would also say there is a different between waterboarding three people and someone like Pol Pot who massacred 1/3 of his country. I am not sure this really takes away our ability to prosecute people like that.
Furthermore we look so bad in the eyes of the world there is a Spanish Court trying to set up arrest warrants for various members of the Bush administration as we speak.
Yes, it is not going to go anywhere really, and world opinion has shown to be pretty fickle. Spain will support us on some issues regards of how they feel about us, and their population will like the United States again eventually, it typically goes in cycles.
Obviously not for you.There are a lot of child rapists killers and mass murders too. They shouldn't be and aren't tortured even if we believe they have a live captive somewhere.
Well, in my view, when they are US citizens they are entitled to the protection of the law and constitution no matter how terrible the crime they have committed.
It sometimes is not easy being a country of laws and a country that doesn't torture to try and build a case or prevent a death. But America is a place where we send people to trial & punish... not have a jailer become judge & jury.
I think we had Congress and the President becomes the judge and jury. I am OK with that for people the people that we picked up and put at GTMO.
I just look back to the example during the Iraq War. Two marines were kidnapped by insurgents and we had credible intelligence on where they were holding the marines. Instead of immediately going to get them, we had to have a sit down to ensure that the intelligence collected did not break the FISA laws. Roughly 12 hours later when it was concluded that it did not, the marines were already dead. They were buried out at Arlington semi recently. I don't know how to explain that to their parents.
Bush declared the conflict. Bin Laden declared the conflict. That's as declared a conflict as anyone can get when one side is not fighting out of a single recognized country but out of a region.
They declared the conflict yes, but declaring a conflict is not all that is needed to get Geneva Protections. The manner in which you fight it is just as important.
The fighters wear their local garb just as the Viet Cong did. And how can you choose to forget the stories out of Vietnam where the little kid would walk up to an American GI with a hand grenade on them or in a stuffed toy???
That was a serious problem in the Vietnam War I concede that, just as it is a serious problem in this war. The difference being if we lose this war, it is the end of the world as we know it.
Unfortunately now I am convinced that you do think everything has been just fine Rob.
Fine is probably not the world, justifiable is probably better.
It's looking more & more like the American people and the world should maybe get a chance to find out. I myself am starting to think about it favorably and I certainly didn't start out that way.
I don't mind having a trial, Bush is going to be acquitted if there is one. The problem I have with the whole thing is that setting up a trial (a real one) is going to rip the country apart and that is the last thing that we need right now in my view.
A lot of talk about Presidents Clinton & Obama........ but President Bush was fully in charge and in total control with both Houses of Congress at his immediate disposal when the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil took place.
I only brought them both up to show policies that I would follow them on, seeing as how it is probably pretty obvious that I am a Republican. I did not blame Clinton for 9/11 anymore than I blame Bush for 9/11. 9/11 was a collective failure of 60 years if you ask me.