Teabagger Whacktards Pledge to Bring Back Torture

[Alferd_Packer]

Putting a man in diapers for days at a time is morally wrong

There's a joke in there, but I'm going to take the high road for once. . . .

 

[AlBell]

I feel it goes well with our drone bombing program.

I suspect most (if not all people) killed by hellcat missile strikes would have preferred to be water-boarded. ymmv.

 

[tyr_13]

I was not talking about tactics I was talking about the moral "high ground". Putting a man in diapers for days at a time is morally wrong but if we had just killed him in a drone bombing not in a war zone or combat situation it is not?

I suspect most (if not all people) killed by hellcat missile strikes would have preferred to be water-boarded. ymmv.

False dilemma.

War is horrible and necessary. Torture is horrible and unnecessary. The choice is not between 'no war and no torture' or 'war and torture'.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

How did we manage to win WWII without torture?

 

[AlBell]

Are you sure we did?

 

[Denver]

I watched this "debate" last night. I'm not certain why Cain took this position: he was the first asked, and I think he scrambled in his mind to come up with a position, and picked the one he thought would be most appealing to his audience. I expect if he had been the last asked, he would have gone more with the crowd.

Which is what I think Bachmann did: she was the second asked, and she just went with Cain's answer, because she also hadn't worked through this, and felt it sounded like a good, strong, GOP position.

Unfortunately for them, the rest of the panel did not agree, took the opposite position, and knocked down Cain's and Bachmann's positions and 'facts'. It will be interesting to see if they try to backtrack their answers, or push them harder. Actually, I think if asked again, they will divert the question with something like, "Look, the real issue here is what do we do from this point in our war on terrorism. And we must do (such and such) in Afghanistan..."

 

[Chaos]

Are you sure we did?

The Nazis and Japanese tortured a lot, and look where that got them.

 

[Alt+F4]

How did we manage to win WWII without torture?

1. Atomic weapons.
2. U.S.'s ability to quickly convert the economy to wartime production.
3. U.S. mainland not attacked (see reason 2)
4. Lots of German mistakes.

 

[Unabogie]

For the most part, Liberals have no short term or long term memory.

It was the Liberal Democrats lawmakers who stood up after 9-11-2001 and demanded that if torture would prevent another 9-11, they were all for it.

If you do some research on brainterminal you will find Clinton and Gore, not Bush, were always outspoken about getting rid of Saddam too.

And for all this Bull about being anti-war and pro-peace, it is the Left that deal with war on the cheap and drag it on for years and decades instead of getting the job done. And thus they cost more money and more lives and make us look weak on the international stage.

The Democrats are all about smoke and mirrors. They just say what you want to hear and what you want to believe. They are not grounded in reality but rather a fantasy fueled by wishful thinking. They say if the USA was kinder and more loving, that love and kindness will be returned. yeah, right. Bill Clinton tried that. He failed.

The Audacity of Hope is right. Do the right thing. Do the right thing even if it does not work and has nefarious and mind-warpingly horrific outcomes that even a child could see as being a logical result.

This is complete gibberish. Why are you bringing up Clinton, Gore, and Iraq? This is about torture, and the question of reinstituting torture, only this time as official US policy. I am against it. Teabaggers are for it, because when Cain said he'd bring back water torture, the audience cheered.

 

[Unabogie]

I was not talking about tactics I was talking about the moral "high ground". Putting a man in diapers for days at a time is morally wrong but if we had just killed him in a drone bombing not in a war zone or combat situation it is not?

The difference has been well understood for centuries. There's a moral duty involved when you have a person completely under your power that doesn't exist when he's on a battlefield. On a battlefield, he still has agency to do you harm. In your custody, he's completely helpless, and that's when your moral duty kicks in. Up until Bush, even Republicans understood this which is why St. Ronnie Raygun signed the convention against torture.

Reagan knew torture is always wrong. Modern Teabaggers have lost their way.

 

[AlBell]

The Nazis and Japanese tortured a lot, and look where that got them.

And who knows what French (and other) Resistance / US OSS did?

 

[Denver]

This is complete gibberish. Why are you bringing up Clinton, Gore, and Iraq? This is about torture, and the question of reinstituting torture, only this time as official US policy. I am against it. Teabaggers are for it, because when Cain said he'd bring back water torture, the audience cheered.

The audience seemed mixed: I also heard applause when Ron Paul noted that water boarding was torture, he was against it, and it was illegal, un-American, and immoral.

 

[Unabogie]

I suspect most (if not all people) killed by hellcat missile strikes would have preferred to be water-boarded. ymmv.

Replace "water-boarded" with "have all their limbs amputated", or "have their eyes removed", or "have their skin burned with blow torches" and you can see how your argument falls apart fairly quickly.

Do you also support those techniques, seeing as how most people killed by missiles would prefer them?

 

[AlBell]

Replace "water-boarded" with "have all their limbs amputated", or "have their eyes removed", or "have their skin burned with blow torches" and you can see how your argument falls apart fairly quickly.

Do you also support those techniques, seeing as how most people killed by missiles would prefer them?

I suggest, like me, most would prefer death by HE & shrapnel than suffering loss of irreparable body parts.

Water-boarding is not imo in that class.

ps. You forgot genital electrodes, anal rape, etc. I'll go with death to those too.

 

[Unabogie]

The audience seemed mixed: I also heard applause when Ron Paul noted that water boarding was torture, he was against it, and it was illegal, un-American, and immoral.

That was good to see. Hunstman is also on the right side of this. McCain has been good on this issue. But as you can see from the comments here, torture has been normalized into conservative dogma thanks to Rush, Hannity, and the Tea Party folks.

I'm hoping that this is enough to scare some support from these people. Torture should be grounds for shunning at the very least (if we can't see outright prosecution).

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I was not talking about tactics I was talking about the moral "high ground". Putting a man in diapers for days at a time is morally wrong but if we had just killed him in a drone bombing not in a war zone or combat situation it is not?

That torture is wrong doesn't require proving (or even believing) that drone bombing in civilian situations is right.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Water-boarding is not imo in that class.

Trouble is your opinion goes against a broad consensus worldwide (and I suspect within the U.S.) and goes against specific elements of the definition of torture in the Convention Against Torture and U.S. law.

 

[Unabogie]

Speaking of WW2, it seems that back then, waterboarding was indeed used. Only we knew which side was the evil one for using it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding

During World War II both Japanese troops, especially the Kempeitai, and the officers of the Gestapo,[112] the German secret police, used waterboarding as a method of torture.[113] During the Japanese occupation of Singapore the Double Tenth Incident occurred. This included waterboarding, by the method of binding or holding down the victim on his back, placing a cloth over his mouth and nose, and pouring water onto the cloth. In this version, interrogation continued during the torture, with the interrogators beating the victim if he did not reply and the victim swallowing water if he opened his mouth to answer or breathe. When the victim could ingest no more water, the interrogators would beat or jump on his distended stomach.[114][115][116]


Chase J. Nielsen, one of the U.S. airmen who flew in the Doolittle raid following the attack on Pearl Harbor, was subjected to waterboarding by his Japanese captors.[117] At their trial for war crimes following the war, he testified "Well, I was put on my back on the floor with my arms and legs stretched out, one guard holding each limb. The towel was wrapped around my face and put across my face and water poured on. They poured water on this towel until I was almost unconscious from strangulation, then they would let up until I'd get my breath, then they'd start over again... I felt more or less like I was drowning, just gasping between life and death."[38] The United States hanged Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American prisoners of war.[9]

 

[varwoche]

Trouble is your opinion goes against a broad consensus worldwide (and I suspect within the U.S.) and goes against specific elements of the definition of torture in the Convention Against Torture and U.S. law.

Geez, it even used to be called water torture. I'll bet that in 1947 when a Japanese officer got 15 years of hard labor for waterboarding an American, the hue and cry was nil. It depends on who's on the receiving end, I reckon.

 

[Unabogie]

Geez, it even used to be called water torture. I'll bet that in 1947 when a Japanese officer got 15 years of hard labor for waterboarding an American, the hue and cry was nil. It depends on who's on the receiving end, I reckon.

I bet that US soldier would have gladly told you how he wasn't tortured. He was just interrogated a little harshly.

And he was happy to be EET'd since the only alternative to his treatment was death by missile.