He doesn't know if it is torture...

Not religious myself, of course, but I don't confuse all believers. Bush is one kind. But I had hoped that some of the others...those who believe in a religion of peace, god of love, etc. would have said something. THe Catholic Bishops have condemend capital punishment, for example, you'd think torture would be easy.
 
headscratcher4 said:
Not religious myself, of course, but I don't confuse all believers. Bush is one kind. But I had hoped that some of the others...those who believe in a religion of peace, god of love, etc. would have said something. THe Catholic Bishops have condemend capital punishment, for example, you'd think torture would be easy.
Click to expand...

Ah but the church in the past tortured people but let the secular authorities exicute them. So maybe they don't feel they have a good moral backing to say that there is anything wrong with torture.
 
headscratcher4 said:
Am I missing something...or have church leaders been unusually silent on this. I would have thought that the Catholic Bishops, at least, if not other denominations would have weighed in on the issue and condemned torture. Did I miss it?
Click to expand...

This is the dirty flip side of the erosion of the wall of separation between church and state. Religion corrupts politics, politics corrupts religion.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Cool, "If congress wanted it to be illegal to kill someone by beating them to death with a 15" black rubber dildo, they should pass a law explicitely defining it as so"
Click to expand...

My point, of course, was that Congress, i.e. the Democrats in Congress will not explicitely declare waterboarding illegal lest that be used against them in an election, showing them weak.

In any case, your counter-example is not a good one because that's clearly murder, which is covered under existing laws. The whole point of waterboarding is that it's in that gray area in the realm of psychological manipulation rather than actual physical harm.

Again, if Congress thinks waterboarding should be illegal, they should explicitely declare it so with legislation.

Who wants to join me holding their breath?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Hello? Anyone? Anyone?
 
Here's the rub as well...if Congress and the Senate acted and passed a law banning waterboarding explicitly, don't you think the President would Veto? I don't think the votes are there to over-ride such a veto. What a sad commentary on our state.
 
Beerina said:
In any case, your counter-example is not a good one because that's clearly murder, which is covered under existing laws. The whole point of waterboarding is that it's in that gray area in the realm of psychological manipulation rather than actual physical harm.
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On what planet is waterboarding "in that gray area"? We've prosecuted people who waterboarded our citizens for war crimes.

Waterboarding
 
Beerina said:
My point, of course, was that Congress, i.e. the Democrats in Congress will not explicitely declare waterboarding illegal lest that be used against them in an election, showing them weak.
Click to expand...

Congress needs to declare war crimes illegal now? Specificaly
In any case, your counter-example is not a good one because that's clearly murder, which is covered under existing laws.
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And that is exactly the issue, just becuase we prosecuted others for it does not mean it is illegal I guess.

And if someone said that waterboarding is clearly torture and illegal now so what?

How did the US prosecute people for crimes that are legal?
 
Upchurch said:
On what planet is waterboarding "in that gray area"? We've prosecuted people who waterboarded our citizens for war crimes.

Waterboarding
Click to expand...

But they where not Americans doing it to foreigners. Just because it is a war crime when done to Americans does not mean it is a war crime when Americans do it.

I thought you knew that Americans have a +3 resistance to war crimes? This raises the bar considerably on what they need to do to qualify for a trial at all.
 
I realize that there is a fine line between what is and isn't torture, but can we all agree that any activity that would cause death if continued for, say, 1 hour is torture?

This doesn't say anything about activities that won't cause death in an hour, but can't we say this at a minimum?

BTW, there is an error in the Wikipedia description. Waterboarding is not "simulated" drowning. It IS drowning. It is just controlled drowning.

Filling the lungs with water poured down the nostrils is not simulating anything. It's the real thing.
 
HeavyAaron said:
Um... well, they were all found out thanks to torturing techniques and burned at the stake! Duh!

I think you just undermined your argument.

Aaron
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Only if you believe in wicthes.
 
JoeEllison said:
This is a distraction from an even bigger issue: Mukasey believes that the president is above the law, and can break any law he wants to. The whole torture thing is only the tip of a very nasty iceberg.
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How right you are.

If the president's role as commander-in-chief allows him to ignore the law where are the limits?

Seems to me that if you ignore the very document that gives you legitimacy then you lose any legitimacy.
 
DaChew said:
A Senate committee prepared to advance Michael Mukasey's nomination to be the nation's 81st attorney general after two key Democrats pledged to support him because he promised to enforce a law against waterboarding if one was enacted by Congress.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gRcgwPvkKFMU-J9UfiuEDq2Y1HAwD8SO2C700
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This is absolutely mindboggling.

The prospective attorney general has to promise to enforce a law? I thought that was his job?

"I promise that, if annointed AG, I will do the job the AG is supposed to do"

I'd like to see that fly at a normal job interview:

"Bob, why do you think you should be a bartender at our estabilishment?"
"If you hire me as a bartender, I give you my solemn promise that I will make drinks for your customers."
 
pgwenthold said:
"Bob, why do you think you should be a bartender at our estabilishment?"
"If you hire me as a bartender, I give you my solemn promise that I will make drinks for your customers."
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Worse than that:

"If you hire me as a bartender, I give you my solemn promise that I will make drinks for your customers, if you tell me that I should make drinks for your customers."
 
pgwenthold said:
BTW, there is an error in the Wikipedia description. Waterboarding is not "simulated" drowning. It IS drowning. It is just controlled drowning.
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There is an error in your descriptive, which I find inaccurate, pg. The intent of waterboarding is not death, it is something else inspired by the fear or death by drowning. Drowning includes death, does it not? If you don't die, you didn't drown. So, if all you want to do is drown someone, stick their head under water and have a few big strong prison guards hold his head under until subject drowns.

That isn't what waterboarding is.

I realize this is a semantic quibble, but I think you will agree that this waterboarding thing is not drowning, since the subject would have to die in order for it to be drowning as you state. A waterboarding gone awry might result in a drowning, achieving an unintended result, a dead by drowning subject, whereas one done consistent with the intent (scare them into something due to perceived fear of drowning) would not.

FWIW.

DR
 
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Darth Rotor said:
There is an error in your descriptive, which I find inaccurate, pg. The intent of waterboarding is not death, it is something else inspired by the fear or death by drowning. Drowning includes death, does it not? If you don't die, you didn't drown.
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If you consider that drowning means death, then it would not be drowning. Then again, it wouldn't be "simulated drowning" either, as it is usually described, because you aren't simulating death, so that would be wrong, too.

Regardless, it most certainly involves filling the lungs with water, which is part of the process of drowning (drowning can be more complicated). The important thing to note is that this is not just making a person feel like they drowning, it involves taking them through the actually physical processes and causing the same reflexive responses. The only thing they do is to stop before death occurs (prolonged waterboarding (how long?) will lead to death)

OTOH, I'm not sure the idea that drowning = death is correct, at least in common usage. For example, how do you describe a person who is sunk to the bottom of the pool? When people are flailing in the water, what do they scream? "Help me, I'm drowning!" "Help him, he's drowning"

It seems to me that "drowning" refers to the process of dying by water inhalation. "Drowned" is when they are dead. I'm trying to think of an analogy, but can't come up with one, though.
 
DR is right. Waterboarding is not drowning. Just like if I shock you with a less than deadly amperage it is not electrocution.

Kidding on the square.

Lurker
 
I guess I just don't get it. Now that it has come out that the US Govt has prosecuted people for waterboarding (successfully) being a war crime, why are apologists for waterboarding still defending it as some sort of legal practice?

What am I missing? Or does the defn of torture change with each Administration? With each AG? Sadly, it appears that it does.
 
Lurker said:
DR is right. Waterboarding is not drowning. Just like if I shock you with a less than deadly amperage it is not electrocution.
Click to expand...

Not a bad analogy, provided that the shocking amps is enough that it would lead to death if done prolongedly.
 
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