Waterboarding Rocks!

[Dr Adequate]

How can you, with a straight face, call me a liar when tsig said as clear as day that a person who lets untold billions die rather than cause temporary pain and discomfort to one person is morally superior to a person who would cause such pain and discomfort in an effort to save those untold billions?

Because what you said in reply was not true.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Senator Carl Levin, democrat - "Where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wires and the phones of American citizens without any court oversight?"

Senator Byrd, democrat - "The American public is given vague and empty assurances by the president that amount to little more than, 'Trust me. Trust me.'"

Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, democrat - "The president seems to have admitted that he secretly eliminated this entire legal process. That raises very serious questions about U.S. intelligence operations and about the president's commitment to obeying the law."

Senator Harry Reid, democrat - "We need to investigate this program and the president's legal authority to carry it out."

Meanwhile, here is what the left's media accomplices where busy telling the public:

http://patterico.com/2006/01/28/



And of course the ACLU was busy fighting the program. They filed suit (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/18/WIRETAP.TMP ) and got a judge to order a stop to the program. Never mind that the experts said this was one of the most important tools we had to fight terrorists planning to attack this country and that just exposing it's existence crippled it.

Draw your own conclusions, folks, about whether the left was really supportive of this type of program.

So, I'll ask you again.

Can you find anyone on "the left" who objected, per se, to "monitoring calls from known al-Qaeda members to people in the US"?

 

[Dr Adequate]

No, in my opinion you added a caveat that for all practical purposes made your answer "no".

And your opinion is, of course, wrong.

You said "if you were certain" that hurting the person would save a hundred thousand lives you would do it. But certainty in something like this simply isn't possible. So let's try again to be sure of where you stand since you really didn't seek to clarify it in your post. If you felt there was a 50/50 chance that hurting the person would elicit information that would save 100,000 lives, would you do it?

That would seem reasonable.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Actually, I addressed it the first time you mentioned it. But I take the posts in the order posted as I get to them.

Not that I can find, and I've searched from that page to this several time looking for it. Cold you point it out to me?

That's just the way it's going to be. If you don't like it, tough. Furthermore, the issue of justification was addressed earlier in this thread in response to others. Weren't you paying attention?

I have, of course, memorized every priceless pearl of wisdom that you have posted on this thread.

In other words, no, I have no idea what you wrote on this subject.

 

[Dr Adequate]

As I said, DA, if the method of waterboarding, for instance, really is very effective in breaking al-Qaeda terrorists and eliciting valuable information from them, that might not be something we want our enemies to know and understand. The Bush administration, prior to the NY Times politicizing the issue, might not wanted to confirm that. Even now, they might not want to confirm what we learned. Potentially, some of the things we learned might still be a great importance and disclosing the fact that we learned those things might seriously damaged ongoing efforts to defeat al-Qaeda. I can fully understand that possible logic. What I can't understand is why the Obama administration would hesitate to disclose the reports and details if waterboarding didn't work and it would embarrass the Bush administration and folks that then must have lied to the American public about it's effectiveness. Can you think of any other logical reason?

I can form many hypotheses.

One is that he is, quite properly, seeking legal advice on what can and cannot be released.

One is that there are national security issues. Even if the waterboarding elicited no new information not already acquired by other techniques, it might have elicited the same information again. How else would one prove the inefficacy of waterboarding, except to say stuff along the lines of: "We tortured such-and-such a terrorist, who told us such-and-such a thing, which we already knew because such-and-such an informant had already told us"? Which reveals what we learned, which, as you point out, we might wish to keep secret. At the very least the documents would all have to be vetted for security implications.

Another, related to that, is the precedent it can set: if the results of waterboarding can be revealed, then why not those of other interrogations?

One is that he wants to retain good relations with the CIA. He has already announced, rightly in my opinion, that he will not prosecute any government agent for acting on good faith on advice provided by the justice department. You say that he would embarrass the Bush administration by releasing the information; would he not also embarrass the CIA? Well, Bush is gone, but he has to live with the CIA.

And one is that he might conceive that releasing the information would embarrass America by showing up the savagery of the methods that its agents employed. Perhaps he puts his country above the prospect of embarrassing Bush, something that would achieve nothing for him nor his country.

In short, there are many conceivable aims that he might have for caution and delay over this issue that he might rank higher than the prospect of visiting the swiftest possible humiliation on a man who is already regarded with scorn and who has no chance of ever again serving as President. There are other conceivable motives in politics than petty spite, and if you do not understand this, I daresay Obama does.

 

[Dr Adequate]

It's not pointless at all. I'm demonstrating that there are circumstances where what is now being called torture might be justified.

But, as I have demonstrated, this argument has no relevance to whether it should be legal.

 

[Megalodon]

It's not pointless at all. I'm demonstrating that there are circumstances where what is now being called torture might be justified. Something that several in this thread have denied and that the UN agreement outlawing procedures like waterboarding also denies. Those people (and that agreement) are lacking moral clarity because their view requires moral equivalence between hurting one person and killing thousands. Which is ludicrous.

Hi, BeAChooser. There is a madman's plot to completely destroy a city and kill 15 million people, that can only be stopped by abducting a random small child from the street, raping and killing her.

Will you do it? Yes or no?

 

[BeAChooser]

I but I (like many others before me) first take the position that it is an unrealistic scenario. It should NOT be one upon which our nation bases its policy.

I'm not asking you about our nation's policy. I'm only asking if YOU would inflict a little harm to potentially save a 100,000 lives in a situation like I describe. I want to find out how much YOU really value human life.

It is widely agreed - and I have every confidence that you will join in - that the subject will say anything to stop the pain. McCain, as have so many others, have said so.

Yes, but when push came to shove, McCain voted to not ban waterboarding and other similar procedures. So I'm asking you, when push came to shove, what YOU would do. Apparently, all you want to do is avoid answering my question using any excuse you can come up with.

Finally, to keep this somewhat short, I just read today (don't have the link handy) that the first interrogator of Zubydah began to get information from him within hours of his capture and that he continued to be a valuable source for days until the CIA took over the process and effed it all up.

Well we have conflicting stories. Don't you think the only way to resolve this is for Obama to release all the reports and information that will tell us which party is lying and whether or not waterboarding was successful? Doesn't Obama have a moral and legal responsibility to do so?

 

[BeAChooser]

Because what you said in reply was not true.

I guess you want me to put you in the same basket as lefty. So be it.

 

[BeAChooser]

You can go in that basket too, Megalodon.

 

[Megalodon]

You can go in that basket too, Megalodon.

Let me reply with your own words:

"I'm only asking if YOU would inflict a little harm to potentially save [15 million] lives in a situation like I describe. I want to find out how much YOU really value human life."

 

[BeAChooser]

Let me reply with your own words:

"I'm only asking if YOU would inflict a little harm to potentially save [15 million] lives in a situation like I describe. I want to find out how much YOU really value human life."

So you see moral equivalence between waterboarding a person (a minute of temporary pain and discomfort) and the act of raping and killing a small child. This says more about YOU than you can possibly imagine, Megalodon. That's why you are going into the ignore basket with lefty.

 

[Megalodon]

So you see moral equivalence between waterboarding a person (a minute of temporary pain and discomfort) and the act of raping and killing a small child. This says more about YOU than you can possibly imagine, Megalodon. That's why you are going into the ignore basket with lefty.

Stop lying... I asked you a question about a hypothetical scenario. Now answer the question: Yes or no?

How much do you value 15 million human lives?

 

[A'isha]

Let me ask you something, BAC.

Why isn't this principle of yours applied in domestic law enforcement? I could provide a hypothetical example of waterboarding some suspect to stop a crazed gunman from shooting up a mall, but I have a better example.

Remember Eric Rudolph? He set bombs that killed a nurse and a police officer at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, and set bombs at both a lesbian bar and (most infamously) the Centennial Park during the Olympic Games in Atlanta. Then he fled to North Carolina, where authorities were pretty much sure he was getting local help. This case is very important to me, since I currently live in Birmingham, my parents and brother lived in Atlanta and attended the Olympics there (though fortunately they weren't in the park that fatal night), and when Rudolph was on the run, the area he was hiding in was where my parents moved to - they were actually living there when Rudolph was eventually captured.

Rudolph was a known danger, and a definite threat - he'd set at least three bombs that killed several people and wounded a hundred and fifty more. He was undoubtedly planning more attacks, and as I said above authorities were sure he was getting local help when he was hiding out in North Carolina. Before he was captured, there was no way of knowing if he would strike again, and his bombings were getting progressively more deadly. His next bombing could easily have been Oklahoma City level.

Why didn't the local authorities grab someone suspected of aiding Rudolph and waterboard them until they gave up the location of this terrorist? Would you, BeAChooser, have supported this action? Do you think they should have?

 

[BeAChooser]

Let me ask you something, BAC.

The lengths to which ANTPogo will go to defend his views on moral equivalency.

 

[A'isha]

The lengths to which ANTPogo will go to defend his views on moral equivalency.

Your avoidance of the question speaks volumes.

 

[Lonewulf]

The lengths to which ANTPogo will go to defend his views on moral equivalency.

So I take it that you refuse to answer the question?

 

[David Wong]

Your avoidance of the question speaks volumes.

The fact that you just obliterated every possible argument he can make probably has something to do with it.

That really puts things in perspective. Wow.

 

[Cicero]

I find it interesting that you think I ever viewed Hitchens with disfavor... nice way to avoid the issue. Keep piling up those straw men, Cicero.



Any chance that you'll volunteer to be waterboarded, like Hitchens did? C'mon, if it isn't that bad, then certainly you - Mr. Bad Ass Root Canal - can handle it better than he did. After all, as BAC keeps harping, it's just nothing more than a little "temporary discomfort".

"Real Americans" my achin' ass

"Writer Christopher Hitchens is asked by the Vanity Fair Magazine if he would submit to being waterboarded and then write about the experience"

http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2008/07/03/watch-christopher-hitchens-get-waterboarded/

I saw the redoubtable Hitchens on C-SPAN yesterday. They showed the footage of him waterboarded. He lasted only a few seconds on his initial experiment before signaling his interrogators to stop. Yet, Hitchens asked his interrogators to try it again. He told Brian Lamb he lasted much longer on his second try before he had to signal the interrogators to stop.

Would Chris volunteer if the procedure were the extraction of finger nails? If the procedure were electrodes attached to his genitals? If the procedure were being burned with cigarettes at the bottom of his feet?

The fact Chris tried the waterboarding a second time was an odd choice when his intention was to investigate if the procedure was indeed torture. Chris may have actually done more to substanciate the notion that waterboarding is"temporary discomfort".

The problem with a root canal is that once you start, their is no stopping until the procedure is completed.

 

[A'isha]

I'm curious about something. If waterboarding really isn't all that bad, as Cicero keeps insisting, why is it so important that we use it? Especially that we use it when lives are on the line and we need information right away!

If waterboarding is no more than "temporary discomfort", what makes it so much more effective than standard military interrogation techniques that even releasing memos about how we used it puts us in danger, to say nothing of the deep kimchi we'd all apparently be in at the hands of the nefarious terrorists should such a technique be disallowed by those traitorous cowardly libs?

Can anyone answer that for me?