What Interrogation Techniques are Acceptable?

So when I say... Anything not allowed to be done to POW's in the Geneva Convention & Army Field Manual should not be allowed. That does seem a fairly informative blanket response... because that has already been established by people who do know everything in this regard.

.....And, they're not all-that-difficult to find....unless (of course) your time is wasted, watching FAUX Noise.

Here's a little REALITY, for all-'o-you John-Wayne/ReRon-Reagan-groupies.​
 
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Ever play that game where you sit in a circle and whisper a story in someones ear and then the last person has to state out loud what the story was 'supposed to be'...what happened with WMD's was tantamount to that little game...we were releasing information out as soon as it was coming in the door {some verified some not/some reliable sources some not} and those same 'agents' were telling their specific countries their own misinformation and the rumor mill was just circling the globe!!! Had they had the opportunity to get all of the informants into one room and ask the simplistic question who told you what and when...OMG...the exchanges of finger pointing and exclamations about "no, you told me...I didn't tell you" would have made a deafening roar!

Sadly intelligence does not operate in this manner.

Meanwhile Saddam could just sit back and chuckle about the 'rumors and fear' that his persona was stirring up globally and he had 'NOTHING - NOTHING' of the magnitude that the rumors were spewing...we just kept feeding his superior ego and he reveled in it!

There is another practical argument for why Saddam needed to keep up the ruse that he did indeed possess a WMD program as we claimed. One of Iraq's main enemies was Iran. Given that we all but destroyed a lot of the Iraqi conventional capability in 1991, in an effort to prevent Iranian dominance of the country, it does make sense that he needed to keep up the ruse.

But my take on all of this: there were many a nation that had borders joined to Iraq and after we hit Iraq during Desert Storm and then we just left despite General Schwarzkopf {I know I didn't get his name right...but I enjoyed his book} saying it was a mistake...we made a mess of that and Saddam was pissed off, and the surrounding countries were afraid of retribution!

So when the 'rumors' started flying around about WMD's...I think that most of it was mass hysteria and if other nations promoted that Idea then The USA was sure to muscle there way into the Iraq country again and keep them from having to do something on their own!!! JUST MY OPINION

I am not sure there is any actual evidence to support that Saddam really did, or even had the capability left, to take retribution on his neighbors. He did put down a Kurdish rebellion, but that was not the same really. Iraq was much weaker than Iran, the US was still in Saudi Arabia, and he certainly was not going to go back into Kuwait. Where would he have gone and with what capability would be my question? At most he could have maybe fired some missiles, but that is really a symbolic gesture that would invite to much retaliation back on him I think.
 
So when I say... Anything not allowed to be done to POW's in the Geneva Convention & Army Field Manual should not be allowed. That does seem a fairly informative blanket response... because that has already been established by people who do know everything in this regard.


This is why I think it is so important to see what obligations you have to uphold to get POW status. "Detainees" did not meet these obligations, and therefore are not to be treated under Geneva Convention protocols.
 
BigRob said: There is another practical argument for why Saddam needed to keep up the ruse that he did indeed possess a WMD program as we claimed. One of Iraq's main enemies was Iran. Given that we all but destroyed a lot of the Iraqi conventional capability in 1991, in an effort to prevent Iranian dominance of the country, it does make sense that he needed to keep up the ruse.

Exactly my point...thanks for paying attention :) It was just B.S. and bluster and nothing more...and G.W.B. pushed it around the world and as good fellow Americans many, many elected officials fell in line right behind him. Support your president...all the way over the cliff and we did...hell I voted for the lying Bastar* and learned what a fraud had been perpetrated upon all of us!
 
The problem is that not being a professional interrogator I would doubtlessly leave out 100's of things that I've just never thought of that could be used that aren't torture... and I'm positive there are tortures that I've never even heard of.
I'm not asking for 100's, I've only asked for 3... I'll further reduce that request to just ONE (1) that is so close to torture in your book, that you had to really think about whether or not to allow it.

So when I say... Anything not allowed to be done to POW's in the Geneva Convention & Army Field Manual should not be allowed. That does seem a fairly informative blanket response...
Again, this is the typical BLANKET response. How much thought did making such a blanket statement take? Zero... Yet its on the basis of such mindless statements that you consider yourselves to hold the moral high ground.

Does that really not seem honest & fair to you?
No it does not. You have continually mischaracterized me, my position, my requests and when I point this out to you... You ratchet up the rhetoric and go farther away from reality and the topic.

I could go back and forth... Sleep deprivation, not... Twisting someones arm to get a confession, is... putting a bug in a prisoners blacked out cell, not... waterboarding, is... I mean this could go on for the entirety of this board.
You're pretty close here... but it needn't go on for the entire thread, I'm only asking for 3. I've been very specific as to what I'm looking for and this is the most specific you've been about your scale so far...

So, without playing it safe and staying at the extreme ends of the spectrum:

What is ALMOST - but not quite - torture in your book? You need only give me one such technique or example. That's all, not hundreds, just one example that's is as close as possible to your line of torture without going over it. I know its a tough question to answer, it makes you actually think about the topic in terms of specifics rather than feel good generalities and blanket statements.

[On a side note: You say arm twisting IS torture? Then I was "tortured" routinely in grade school and high school... My schools wrastlin team was all a bunch of torturers]


Perhaps the correct way would be if you listed various actions and I could respond down YOUR list... I'd be more than glad to do that.
I know you'd be glad to do that... after all you are a coach and standing on the sidelines is what you know best... That's all Monday morning quarterbacks like yourself have been doing is standing safely on the sidelines judging those with the guts to take the field. I'm asking you to come out on the field but you instinctively know that in doing so, those still on the sidelines will begin judging you... and that terrifies you into sticking with blanket statements, made from the safety of the sidelines.

Well that's because you're trying to build a box that I won't enter.
No, I'm not... That's how you may operate but I've been very gracious to those who choose to participate and discuss the topic with me as requested.

I've several times now in several threads posted that the Geneva Convention and Army Field Manual rules should be the standard.
These sort of blanket statements are not what I've been asking for, that's why I have been very specific in my requests.

What you want is for me to list everything that's torture (which of course nobody knows)
Wrong... that's NOT what I have requested.
which would allow you to then pop up with something bizarre and say... See you didn't cite this, you Progressives think making someone shoot up battery acid isn't torture, you Progressive like shooting up.
I'm not playing a 'Gotcha!' game here, I have asked out of a sincere interest in the topic. So many people seem to agree that waterboarding is torture, that I wanted to hear where their "point" of torture began and see if they could provide an example or two of techniques that they consider close, but not quite, torture. If everyone who thinks Waterboarding is torture did that, this whole thread would explode with a realistic and honest discussion on the topic with actual specifics of what should, and should not, be acceptable forms of interrogation.

So far, only one person has done that; ASPCA4EVER, and for his participation I am grateful.

ASPCA, I wish Top Gun, PLC1 and the rest of the sideliners would show the balls that you did in stepping onto the field and offering examples. You may remember that I thanked you, repeatedly, yet Top Gun thinks this is all some trap... ASPCA... I want you to think about who it was that attacked your examples... Was it me... or was it the sideliners? The sideliners are the ones who have set the trap in the middle of the field, that's why they are afraid to walk out there. I'll gladly stand here on their trap, being called an immoral supporter of torture, in hopes that more people like yourself can see just how they play this stupid game.

Not Bitting my friend, we're always 3 chess moves ahead...
Too bad we're playing poker... But seriously, you're always playing games... I'm not here to play games of one-ups-manship, I'm not here as a cheerleader for one party or another, but you clearly are. You, Shaman, Popeye, and many others here are always "in character" and never step out of character long enough to carry on a conversation as though you were normal everyday people.

If you really want to play games; I'll pick a ridiculous position on torture, I'll declare my position as the unquestionable moral high ground, I'll declare you a supporter of torture and I'll make an excellent case for myself and position as well... But I'd rather be real, and I'd rather talk to honest people who aren't here to play games.
 
Gen. Said: So far, only one person has done that; ASPCA4EVER, and for his participation I am grateful.

ASPCA, I wish Top Gun, PLC1 and the rest of the sideliners would show the balls that you did in stepping onto the field and offering examples. You may remember that I thanked you, repeatedly, yet Top Gun thinks this is all some trap... ASPCA... I want you to think about who it was that attacked your examples... Was it me... or was it the sideliners? The sideliners are the ones who have set the trap in the middle of the field, that's why they are afraid to walk out there. I'll gladly stand here on their trap, being called an immoral supporter of torture, in hopes that more people like yourself can see just how they play this stupid game.

HEY, {I'll try to talk in my manly-man voice but my lack of of an Adams-Apple gives me away...gender incorrect there my friend...LOL}

No harm/no foul. But I started off your topic with some absolutes about what I didn't want done...it took me a while and some serious prodding from you to make me kick those brain cells into a thought process.

I used to be of the mind set that even tasering was soooo bad to do to another human and then I got to try it out on my own person...loosing control of my bladder in front of some fellow EMT's wasn't what I thought nor what I had assumed would happen...HUMILIATING BEYOND BELIEF. But seriously, It was horrible and I'm not sure that I could do that to the worst of the worst heinous criminals {perverts/pedophiles/sexual offenders/child abusers/animal abusers...not after I felt that horrible sensation of being tased!!!

So while I offered up LOUD MUSIC/LOUD SINGING by Rosanne Barr as torture to the offensive victim...when push came to shove and I was told to do the continual off & on cycle of application/method...I don't think that I could!
 
HEY, {I'll try to talk in my manly-man voice but my lack of of an Adams-Apple gives me away...gender incorrect there my friend...LOL}
My apologies. :)

No harm/no foul. But I started off your topic with some absolutes about what I didn't want done...it took me a while and some serious prodding from you to make me kick those brain cells into a thought process.
Its a difficult topic when you actually think about specifics. If you stick with vague statements of generalities and stay off to the sidelines dealing only with extremes, the topic is pretty easy... easy because you don't have to actually think, you need only feel your way through it and rely on emotional arguments.
 
Exactly my point...thanks for paying attention :) It was just B.S. and bluster and nothing more...and G.W.B. pushed it around the world and as good fellow Americans many, many elected officials fell in line right behind him. Support your president...all the way over the cliff and we did...hell I voted for the lying Bastar* and learned what a fraud had been perpetrated upon all of us!

Well I am not sure that you can blame Bush exactly for this. Our intelligence just got it wrong. If our President cannot listen to our own intelligence agencies and have confidence in what they are telling them, then how is he supposed to make decisions? He made a choice based on what turned out to be bad intelligence. He did not know it at the time. I am not sure that makes the action a "lie" or him a "lying bastard".
 
Its a difficult topic when you actually think about specifics. If you stick with vague statements of generalities and stay off to the sidelines dealing only with extremes, the topic is pretty easy... easy because you don't have to actually think, you need only feel your way through it and rely on emotional arguments.

It gets even worse when trying to come up with policy options on a strategic level.

For example we always hear "well rouge states are able to be deterred." Those spitting out this thought never take it further to think how can they be deterred, and why are they actually deterrable if that is true.

Now multiply that by about a million, make it your job, and realize if you get it wrong a city could be lost. The practical and the academic are always somewhat different in reality.
 
Well I am not sure that you can blame Bush exactly for this. Our intelligence just got it wrong. If our President cannot listen to our own intelligence agencies and have confidence in what they are telling them, then how is he supposed to make decisions? He made a choice based on what turned out to be bad intelligence. He did not know it at the time. I am not sure that makes the action a "lie" or him a "lying bastard".
Leave it to the admins to keep a topic derailed.... :rolleyes:

Just teasing.

ASPCA, here's some off topic things for you to digest concerning the whole "Bush Lied" line of thought:

He May Have Been Wrong But He Wasn't Lying


'Bush Lied'? If Only It Were That Simple.


Democrats before Iraq War started....
 
Its a difficult topic when you actually think about specifics. If you stick with vague statements of generalities and stay off to the sidelines dealing only with extremes, the topic is pretty easy... easy because you don't have to actually think, you need only feel your way through it and rely on emotional arguments.
How 'bout PRECEDENCE?

"Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any (prisoner) ... I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause ... for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country."

So there we have it, George Washington considered the death penalty for torturers.

Let the prosecutions begin."​
 
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How 'bout PRECEDENCE?

Was there only one crayola in your box?

Your "response" (if it can even be called a response), only reinforces my complaint that you sideliners are avoiding actual thought on the topic by refusing to delve into specifics.

And leave it to "Progressives" to butcher quotes from the founders out of context in order to push your agenda. Those "..." are the missing context in your quote, which is a butcher job from two letters, and if you read them both in complete context, Washington was referring to the type of treatment detainees recieved at Abu Ghraib and not harsh interrogation techniques like waterbaording.
 
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