Bush VETOS Ant i-Torture Bill ! ! !

[JustinM]

Have you read every post on this topic? If you had, you'd understand that the source of contention on the issue isn't whether the US should employ torture on terrorists. It's whether waterboarding is torture or not. So, when you criticise us, you need to get your facts straight and you can start by replacing the word torture with waterboarding.

Now if you want to debate whether waterboarding is indeed torture, we can have that debate, but otherwise you fall into the category of being a propagandist.

Whether waterboarding is torture or not, is the topic at hand and as you see, the country is divided on this issue and it is still unresolved.

It's not hard, really, to tell who is an American Citizen and who is not here.

away as a new member, isn't the way to win an argument here.

As I understood it the title, and indeed, original intent of this thread was to discuss the vetoing of an anti-torture bill. Not an anti-waterboarding bill. Perhaps somewhere along the line the debate meandered from that?

And, do I detect a jab in saying it's not hard to tell who is an American citizen? Is it because I do not value American lives any more or less than the lives of people from other countries or backgrounds?

In any case I stand by my above comment about it. Simply saying that it is more humane than other methods of torture does not make it any more justifiable - in the same way that beating someone to a bloody mess is more humane than killing them but no more justifiable.

The lesser of available evils it may be but that does not diminish the fact that it is still evil.

Also it seems your last sentence was either malformed by the forum script or you may have intended to edit it.

Chimoku failed to include a link in this news thread, so I will include one I found.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336068,00.html

The Secretary General deemed that waterboarding and other interrogation methods did not violate international humanitarian law.

Congress tried to create a law that would make those interrogation techniques unlawful and the President vetoed it.

Regardless of what The Guardian, BBC , or other international news organizations say or feel on the matter, the US is not violating International Law.

So, as you see, whether waterboarding is torture or not, remains unresolved, even by our lawmakers, so before anyone calls waterboarding torture one more time, keep in mind you are only expressing your opinion on the matter and that cannot be passed off as fact, for the time being.

[O'Dannyboy]

Aparently the difference here is that some of us are passivists and some of us are not. I for one will not coddle those who intend to do us harm. If they know something that could save lives, I think their discomfort is justified. They knew the risks when they started pointing guns at our soldiers and intentionaly killing innocent civilians. You can throw them tea parties and dance with them in the streets chanting death to America death to Israel if it makes you feel better but don't kid yourself thinking that your children will be any safer because of it.

[Guest Desaan]

Chimoku failed to include a link in this news thread, so I will include one I found.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336068,00.html

The Secretary General deemed that waterboarding and other interrogation methods did not violate international humanitarian law.

Congress tried to create a law that would make those interrogation techniques unlawful and the President vetoed it.

Regardless of what The Guardian, BBC , or other international news organizations say or feel on the matter, the US is not violating International Law.

So, as you see, whether waterboarding is torture or not, remains unresolved, even by our lawmakers, so before anyone calls waterboarding torture one more time, keep in mind you are only expressing your opinion on the matter and that cannot be passed off as fact, for the time being.

Ah good old US self-righteousness and right-wind bias raises its ugly head once more. I can see where this is headed, perhaps I'll save myself the bother of arguing with those already firmly set in their opinions.

Aparently the difference here is that some of us are passivists and some of us are not. I for one will not coddle those who intend to do us harm. If they know something that could save lives, I think their discomfort is justified. They knew the risks when they started pointing guns at our soldiers and intentionaly killing innocent civilians. You can throw them tea parties and dance with them in the streets chanting death to America death to Israel if it makes you feel better but don't kid yourself thinking that your children will be any safer because of it.

Oh and look! The straw men are already being rolled out.

Edited March 11, 2008 by Desaan

[nebula]

So much for my attempt to bring peace to this thread.

[Marnie]

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Marni - I've read your posts in other threads ,and you always come across like a really warm and intelligent woman. So I do with all due respect, beg to differ with you on a comment you made

Marni

but I have seen it done (training videos and such).

you know . . .a video is horrid enough . . but its like watching a birth on the video - people watching don't know the pain.

Incidentally, how can you be sure I have never been tortured? Having a choice, I'd pick waterboarding.

I guess we arent sure whether you have or not.

However, having worked with trauma victims and torture survivors, typically they are not as casual in commenting about this kind of experience - as we tend to be who have not been through torture. They tend not to be able to speak about it at all. Its too painful. i t takes years to process that.

Just like it does our men who come back from combat - with PTSD

- its a kind of very severe PTSD only more complex , more damaging -

Very sad to witness , the deeply imprinted anquish, the impact torture has on the human being.

They are never the same.

Many are in some respects spirtually broken.

I am always at awe when I see and hear John McCain - because of what he went through at the hanoi Hilton during the time in captivity.

He is a study and a remarkable man - and an exception in many respects to the typical psychological construct of a torture victim. But I dont know how much debriefing / therapy he may have had when he returned . . . nor the preparedness in training for this sort of thing . . . although one can hardly prepare for torture . .

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Well, first, you are clearly a person of amazing discernment when it comes to first impressions.

Second, my testimony is fairly well known by many around here, so I won't bore anybody rehashing it, but I was in fact the victim of real torture a few years ago. Unlike waterboarding, which harms nobody, I have scars on my body and in my mind that will never go away, not to mention various aches and pains due to the my bones being pulverized. I can also inform you that when people tell you information gained through torture or harsh interrogation techniques is unreliable, they don't have a clue what they are talking about. To my everlasting shame, I told everything I knew after a few minutes. It didn't do any good, of course, but I told the truth, and I was a trained professional.

So I can tell all of you utopian liberals who think we are actually "leading the way" treating the enemy better than they treat us, that they don't give two d***s how we treat their own and nothing short of Divine Intervention and judgment will change the way they think about us or treat us. We, mere human beings, are incapable of changing our own hearts, let alone anybody else's. How arrogant to think we can.

[kat8585]

Well, if it is used on terrorists and will save us from future attacks, I'm all for it. BTW, waterboarding isn't torture.

Ok lets strap you to a board, hang you upside down, and pour water down through your nose into your lungs and then we will see whether you agree with the Geneva Convention and any decent and conscionable individual on the face of the planet that water-boarding is indeed torture.

Who would Jesus torture?

Did you know we actually executed Japanese soldiers following World War II for war crimes because they water-boarded American POWs.

I guess you'd rather they come to kill your children.

[MorningGlory]

Not bad for your second post, Desaan. I have been perplexed by this since the thread started. What you're seeing here is a microcosm of the American people's differing opinions on this subject. It's a very emotional issue and produces some fiery rhetoric. Welcome to Worthy, btw.

Many thanks for the kind welcome and the words of encouragement. I suppose much of what I said was inspired by a different (though somewhat related) thread on another BBS I'm a member of. I had suppressed my feelings on the matter due, in part, to how the once subtle racism has become, shall we say, not quite so subtle any more. In itself that's tolerable but the moderaters seem to tolerate it a little too easily.

Truly, we [the Irish] are a nation of petty begrudgers.

As a sidenote, was it that obvious I'm not American? Honestly, whenever the subject of crime and punishment crops up in Ireland one is apt to find the usual suspects foaming at the mouth and sharpening their tongues. As you rightly point out it is a very emotive issue and for me a personal point of contention.

I have very strict principles and am loathe to sacrifice them. Normally I'm quite the mild-mannered person but sometimes I wade into these debates. For all the bile they stir up there is something undeniably attractive about them.

Actually, no, it's not obvious that you're not American. I assumed though that you were either American, Canadian, New Zealander, Australian or British since you write in English. I suppose the issue of torture and the proper way for Christians to behave is one that comes up in most countries. BTW, if you're attracted to debate, you came to the right forum. And it is the best Christian site on the web.

[kat8585]

for the life of ME, i don't understand why so many don't understand this.... we aren't sinking to their level. we aren't slitting their throats and distributing the video to news stations. THAT is their level.

furthermore, i don't understand why this gets overlooked either. waterboarding is far more humane by our social standards than what God commanded His people to subject their enemies (and His) to... yeah sure, that was thousands of years ago. but ya know what? GOD has not changed.

Ok, next time we occupy a nation, we are to slaughter every man, woman, and male child. Rip the wombs open of pregnant women, and instruct our soldiers to take and rape every virgin girl as spoils of war. After all, since thats all in the Old Testament, we should go ahead and do it.

Who is saying we should do this?

[EricH]

Lets give this a rest