Bush VETOS Ant i-Torture Bill ! ! !

[Guest LadyC]

yep, i agree that it is... and while the statement you quoted was a fabulous, if i recall correctly, the "accidental death" of santiago was not something that occurred as a result of trying to defend the country against enemy combatants.... and if it did, it didn't have to, but was set up that way to get rid of someone who jessup didn't like. i could be wrong, it's been a long time since i saw the movie.

[O'Dannyboy]

yep, i agree that it is... and while the statement you quoted was a fabulous, if i recall correctly, the "accidental death" of santiago was not something that occurred as a result of trying to defend the country against enemy combatants.... and if it did, it didn't have to, but was set up that way to get rid of someone who jessup didn't like. i could be wrong, it's been a long time since i saw the movie.

Jessup ordered the code red, a punishment, as a means to straighten up his act. It was un unsymathetic act, to be sure, but he surely did not intend for it to kill him. He admitted it was regretable but he thought it to be par for the course in his mission.

[Guest LadyC]

but... punishable for what offense? feel free to pm me with the answer LOL... no sense in me dragging this thread so far off topic. what you quoted was one of the best speaches any screen-writer ever came up with for a movie character. and it is quite applicable to the discussion at hand.

[Guest Desaan]

You know, I'm rather perplexed at some of the blithe acceptance of violence towards other human beings in this thread. I know I shouldn't but somehow I expected more from this community.

Very often one sees the same tripe being dredged up (from whatever sinkhole I shall never know) whenever common criminals are hurled into the lime-light. Justice is just that, it is not revenge and as a civilised Western nation one would think the populace could have moved beyond such thoughts. Alas, though, kneejerk reaction is as alive and well now as it ever was.

Perish the thought that human beings might be actually treated like...well, human beings. No - we need our punching bags to rend our anger unto.

The fact is that the "They behead our people so we can do what we like to them!" argument is fundamentally flawed; you do not get to both act like terrorists and maintain the moral high ground - you do not. Choose one - take the moral high ground or behave like your enemies do - but at least have the decency to be honest about your position.

As to the bill being vetoed, I expected little else. To appease the howling mobs one must sometimes throw them some blood.

Edited March 11, 2008 by Desaan

[MorningGlory]

You know, I'm rather perplexed at some of the blithe acceptance of violence towards other human beings in this thread. I know I shouldn't but somehow I expected more from this community.

Very often one sees the same tripe being dredged up (from whatever sinkhole I shall never know) whenever common criminals are hurled into the lime-light. Justice is just that, it is not revenge and as a civilised Western nation one would think the populace could have moved beyond such thoughts. Alas, though, kneejerk reaction is as alive and well now as it ever was.

Perish the thought that human beings might be actually treated like...well, human beings. No - we need our punching bags to rend our anger unto.

The fact is that the "They behead our people so we can do what we like to them!" argument is fundamentally flawed; you do not get to both act like terrorists and maintain the moral high ground - you do not. Choose one - take the moral high ground or behave like your enemies do - but at least have the decency to be honest about your position.

As to the bill being vetoed, I expected little else. To appease the howling mobs one must sometimes throw them some blood.

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.

[MorningGlory]

oh, and the US does NOT, i repeat NOT use illegal means to elicit information. waterboarding is NOT illegal. i really hate when people keep inferring that it is.

Well, LadyC, I won't infer that it is illegal but....it was illegal in 1968. Why would it be legal now?

See here; from Wikipedia............

Waterboarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in the Vietnam War.[37] On January 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a controversial photograph of an American soldier supervising the waterboarding of a North Vietnamese POW near Da Nang.photo[38] The article described the practice as "fairly common."[38] The photograph led to the soldier being court-martialled by a U.S. military court within one month of its publication, and he was thrown out of the army.[37][39] Another waterboarding photograph of the same scene is also exhibited in the War Remnants Museum at Ho Chi Minh City.[40]

On July 20, 2007, U.S. President George W. Bush signed an executive order banning torture during interrogation of terror suspects.[50] While the guidelines for interrogation do not specifically ban waterboarding, the executive order refers to torture as defined by 18 USC 2340, which includes "the threat of imminent death," as well as the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.[51] Reaction to the order was mixed, with the CIA satisfied that it "clearly defined" the agency's authorities, but Human Rights Watch saying that answers about what specific techniques had been banned lay in the classified companion document and that "the people in charge of interpreting [that] document don't have a particularly good track record of reasonable legal analysis."[52]

[Guest Desaan]

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.

Edited March 11, 2008 by Desaan

[O'Dannyboy]

You know, I'm rather perplexed at some of the blithe acceptance of violence towards other human beings in this thread. I know I shouldn't but somehow I expected more from this community.

Very often one sees the same tripe being dredged up (from whatever sinkhole I shall never know) whenever common criminals are hurled into the lime-light. Justice is just that, it is not revenge and as a civilised Western nation one would think the populace could have moved beyond such thoughts. Alas, though, kneejerk reaction is as alive and well now as it ever was.

Perish the thought that human beings might be actually treated like...well, human beings. No - we need our punching bags to rend our anger unto.

The fact is that the "They behead our people so we can do what we like to them!" argument is fundamentally flawed; you do not get to both act like terrorists and maintain the moral high ground - you do not. Choose one - take the moral high ground or behave like your enemies do - but at least have the decency to be honest about your position.

As to the bill being vetoed, I expected little else. To appease the howling mobs one must sometimes throw them some blood.

Hello and welcome Desaan. Welcome to Worth Boards.

I am certain most of the people here do not blithely accept "violence towards human beings". It's not like we are saying we want terror suspects or POWs to be waterboarded. We simply don't think it needs to removed from the interogators bag of tricks. We believe this method of information extraction is extreme and only acceptable as a last resort. However, there are many who liken it to bamboo shoots under the fingernail or the iron maiden. This comparison is not a fair one. Nor is your comparison of terrorists to the common criminal. You liken our view of enemy combatants to that of our personal punching bags. Could you be any more insulting? Please try to remember this is a Christian forum. We are allowed to share our opinions here without being called terrorists. Not a very good precident from someone who advocates taking the moral high ground.

[Guest LadyC]

glory, in case you don't know it, i don't find anything credible about an argument that is presented with material from wikipedia.

i'm perplexed at this thread too... i'm perplexed that people can think that we're on the same level as terrorists. i'm ashamed that people are so willing to cast judgement against those who do not oppose waterboarding while pretending that their view is the biblical one... sorry, it's not. i still haven't seen any who think we're on that slippery slope address the issue of how God expected the enemy to be handled. except for forrest that is... he addressed it with such venom it was almost scary, sarcastically asking why don't i just support that sort of treatment... you know, the kind that God Himself prescribed in war.

i'm almost tempted to say "yes, let's!"

[nebula]

And, as for the Taliban, they do horrific things to people.....my point is that I don't want our country to even start in that direction.

I can understand that. And I believe it is a good thing for people like you to keep making noise that it doesn't happen.

But as was mentioned, we are running on different premises.

For one, none of us believe the government and are soldiers should be acting as Christian missionaries.

They should, however, wield the sword to defend the nation and its citizens (which we agree is a Biblical mandate, right?).

Now, what form that sword wielding manifests can be good or bad, and we are not seeing eye to eye on how far too far is.

Although I agree that waterboarding is highly unpleasant, I personally don't believe it to be in the same class as sexual humiliation or drawing blood and the like.

This is why I advocated at this point we have all pretty much said all there is to say, and neither are going to put a dent on anyone else's position, and maybe it's time to just wrap up this debate and move on.